


Spare Me Your Dreams

by Owaya1



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Art, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death In Dream, Getting Together, Gun Violence, Inception-verse AU, Iwa needs a Hug, Lazy Mornings, M/M, May Contain Trace Amounts of Fluff, Mentions of same-sex marriage laws, Militarized Dreaming, Oikawa needs to chill, Smut, University, all that jazz, and some, childhood best friends, in other words
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 20:41:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15871359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owaya1/pseuds/Owaya1
Summary: The first time Iwaizumi gets shot down from the sky by a heat-seeking missile, he still has seven hours left in the dream. He dies slowly in the wreckage of his Japanese fighter jet, the shrapnel in his gut poisoning his blood even as his skin boils black and oozes through the cracks of third degree burns. He lies there, gasping desperately for air, and all he knows is the cold, clawing of fear and pain and a loneliness so acid it almost drowns out all the rest.The taste and shape of Oikawa’s name hovers on his lips as he jerks awake.After that, Iwaizumi keeps a gun strapped to his chest whenever he is under, and every time he wakes up, gasping from the imagined pain of a bullet to the brain, he thinks of Oikawa and the contagious naiveté of academia, and he thinks of good intentions._____Note: No extensive knowledge or understanding of the Inception movie is required for the enjoyment of this fic.





	1. Part One — Your callous mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laifis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laifis/gifts).



> This fic has been several months in the making, and is my ultimate love letter to IwaOi, to the Inception fandom, and most importantly to my friend Laifis who has graced me and the whole of HQ fandom with her amazing talent and passion for the volley gays. I am undeserving.
> 
> All the amazing art in this fic belongs to [ Laifis](https://laifis.tumblr.com/), and links to her works can be found below. Please go yell at her for me, because she deserves all the credit.
> 
> If you have never seen the movie or stepped foot in the Inception fandom before, then fear not. Though I hope the fic explains itself you can find a basic breakdown of the inception knowledge you need for this fic in the end notes.
> 
>  
> 
> Title and chapter titles are all shamelessly stolen from Mumford and Sons lyrics.

 

 

* * *

 

**2023 - UKRAINE**

      “Iwa-chan, I need your help,”

      ”Oikawa?” Iwaizumi yanks the receiver away from his ear and stares down at the clunky military phone in his hand. Disbelief stutters his breath as he voices a question that won’t give him any of the answers he wants. “How did you get this number?”

      The UN military bunker is cold and unfriendly around him. Iwaizumi’s voice echoes eerily over the constant buzz of a generator. He is alone for now.

      “Iwa-chan I’m in trouble.” Oikawa is breathing too loudly on the other end, his voice pitched just slightly too high. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

      Iwaizumi darts a frantic look around him. The hall is empty, the concrete walls dark and the light dim. No one is listening right now, but he turns to face the bare concrete wall and puts his back to the cameras as he brings a hand up to shield the phone’s mouthpiece anyway.

      “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says softly, “you aren’t supposed to know this number, when they find out—“

      “I know, I know! I’m sorry. But they’re after me, Iwa-chan. They’re coming after me.”

      “What did you do?” Iwaizumi demands, and too many possibilities flash through his mind, all equally horrible. _What did you do?_ He asks, because Iwaizumi has done so many horrible things himself and he wonders, _which one_.

      “How long will it take you to come to Barcelona?” Oikawa asks. His breathing is the sound of a roiling ocean, choppy and hitting against the beach too hard and too quick.

      “Oikawa—“

      “They’re going to court martial you either way, Iwa-chan. They check the phone logs; you know they do. You might as well come.”’      

      “I could report this call,” Iwaizumi points out, something sharp and heavy rattling in his chest as he says it. “I could report it, and they would let me off with a slap on the wrist.” There is a long beat of silence on Oikawa’s end.

      “You won’t,” Oikawa says at last, and the certainty in his voice is like the final strike of a gavel — a verdict passed. Iwaizumi closes his eyes. He always knew loyalty would be his downfall. It has been before. “How long will it take you to come to Barcelona?” Oikawa asks again. Iwaizumi silently shakes his head, his eyes still closed.

      “A few days,” Iwaizumi says softly, his hands clutching the receiver too tightly as his world rearranges around him. There will be no going back.  “Do you need me to bring anything?”

      “No,” Oikawa assures him, “I have everything, — or I’ll get it. I just need you to come.” Oikawa heaves in another breath, slower now, — a storm passing, “Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, low, “I’m sorry, I just…” Iwaizumi waits, eyes closed, feeling the weight of the military compound and almost four years in the service press in around him. “I can’t do this alone,” Oikawa whispers.

      And Oikawa might be a world away, he might be asking for the impossible — for something Iwaizumi can’t afford to give — but he is also hopelessly, endlessly, moored to something permanent and crucial inside Iwaizumi. There was never any denying that voice.

      “A few days,” Iwaizumi promises and then the call disconnects.

 

* * *

 

      Iwaizumi hadn’t known when he signed up for a stint in the Japanese self-defence air force that someone would be screening aptitude tests for specific psychological indicators of mental stability. He just knows that half a year into basic training, he was pulled out and offered a position on a multinational research unit and told he wouldn’t ever get a chance like this again.

      When he asked what he would be flying, his commanding officer had laughed and clapped Iwaizumi on the shoulder. “Anything you want,” the man had said, “anything at all you can dream up.”

      Iwaizumi hadn’t understood until three months later, sitting in an underground military base somewhere in Ukraine and staring at an achingly familiar machine as a nurse punctured his vein with a needle and told him to _lie back._

      After that, well. Iwaizumi understood alright — understood better than any of the other GIs in the unit. Words like PASIV and somnacin snuck back into his life from where they had been shoved away and forcibly forgotten along with the rest of his misspent university years. Even now, it is Oikawa’s voice — bright and zealous — reminding him of the things he thought he had left behind.

      ‘ _Iwa-chan, my dreamshare technology is going to revolutionize the field of therapy. Just think about it! Shared dreaming! All I need to do is fix the somnacin dosage and find an alternate solvent to the opioids we’ve been using so far. Shared dreaming is going to be the future, it’s going to help so many people.”_

      It had been different back then, of course. Oikawa couldn’t have known that the military had been secretly founding his research and would eventually lift the PASIV and the improved somnacin mix off and out of his hands. He couldn’t have known his drug’s enhanced stabilisation and sensory load would be used not for therapy but for interrogations and military operation drills. He couldn’t have known it would be used for torture.

 

* * *

 

 **2023 - UKRAINE**  

      Breaking out of a secure, top-secret, UN military base is easier than breaking into one, but only marginally so. It helps that Iwaizumi has been preparing for a hypothetical escape for almost two years and that it is the last Friday of the month. Which is to say all the senior staff has left the premises to go on a short leave and most of the junior staff has snuck out of the premises to drink beer with the locals.

      Iwaizumi peels out his exquisitely crafted and unfairly expensive fake passport from where he has stowed it into his mattress’ stuffing and shoves it into his hidden inner-pocket where he keeps an old, torn photograph folded in half — the only personal affect he never goes anywhere without. If he had more time, he would have preferred to pilfer a gun from the armoury as well, but by all rights, Iwaizumi only has until morning before the phone logs are checked and the recordings tapped. Which means he has to be out of the country by then.

      He rests a hand over his heart, feeling the cool press of the photograph against his skin. It is a picture of two boys standing up on the highest point of a mountain, clutching at each other to keep balanced on the peak’s jagged edge. The black haired boy is staring straight at the camera, unflinching, as he stays steady enough for the both of them. The other boy — the one with the fluffy brown hair and dimples — is leaning backwards, outwards, his head thrown back and his eyes on the sky as if in search of some new, higher point to conquer — careless of the drop beneath him.

      Iwaizumi has always known Oikawa would one-day climb too high — that one day not even Iwaizumi’s steady grip would be enough to prevent a fall — but Iwaizumi will be cold and six feet under before he isn’t at least there to break it.

      He stalks through the base’s hallways with quiet purpose, sticking to passages with no surveillance when possible, and stepping through camera blind spots when not. He makes for the roof instead of the main entrance, knowing someone will start asking questions if he tries to sneak out that way so late in the evening when most of those who have been out drinking are beginning to trickle back in.

      Kuroo is waiting for him when Iwaizumi reaches the final door to the roof. The other man stands with his back leaned against the concrete wall, an unlit cigarette caught between his teeth as he watches Iwaizumi approach.

      Iwaizumi doesn’t look at Kuroo as he passes; he just feels the weight of yellowed, sleepless, eyes on his back as a silent accusation. The feeling settles and stays as he steps out onto the roof and closes the heavy iron door behind him.

 

* * *

 

**2023 - COPENHAGEN**

      Iwaizumi doesn’t go to Barcelona, because this is Oikawa, and Oikawa wouldn’t have been so stupid as to actually say where he wanted Iwaizumi to go on a tapped phone. No, there is only one place Oikawa could go where Iwaizumi will find him, so Iwaizumi takes a flight to Paris where he gets off and resorts to a myriad of awful busses and trains until he reaches Milano, where he then takes the first flight out to Copenhagen, Denmark.

      The small, Danish capital thrums gently with life as he picks his way towards city centre. It is an old, dirty city, stubborn with its tightly packed red-bricked buildings and in its refusal to grow more than five stories high. The cobblestones beneath Iwaizumi’s feet are trodden flat and smooth from decades worth of feet and from the centuries of history packed beneath. The sky looms wide and pale overhead.

      Iwaizumi’s eye catches on a man sitting outside a café overlooking a bombastic fountain. The man’s obnoxious combination of reflective shades and a plaid fedora is unmistakably the kind of thing Oikawa would wear just because Iwaizumi finds them awful, and Iwaizumi’s heart does something painful in his chest to find his best friend familiar like this even after so many years of estrangement.

      “Is this seat taken?” Iwaizumi asks, feeling broken and relieved in turn. The man in the fedora flashes a set of white teeth — almost blinding in he sharp midday sun.

      “You’re almost late, Iwa-chan.”

      Iwaizumi pulls out a chair and sits down beside his oldest friend, their backs against the café front and their bodies angled outwards to face the crowds. Iwaizumi wonders if this was intentional on Oikawa’s part — whether he is being cautious or if he is just watching people as the stroll by. Discreetly, Iwaizumi tucks his own plain black cap further down over his eyes, hiding the short military buzz beneath it.

      “Are you going to tell me what all of this is about now?” Iwaizumi asks, keeping his voice low. His restless gaze catches the eye of a guy three tables down blatantly checking Oikawa out, and it makes Iwaizumi lean in and turn his head to peer at the reflective glass of Oikawa’s shades. His own eyes stare back out at him, tired and burning with something he can’t quite place. “Oikawa,” he murmurs, “please tell me I’m not on Interpol’s black list because of something stupid.”

      Oikawa’s mouth is the shape Iwaizumi remembers — the one he still sees sometimes, when he gets too lost in the matrix of the dream. It curves upwards just slightly at the edges and goes round and soft in the middle.

      “Look at you,” Oikawa murmurs, one of his slender hands finding Iwaizumi’s fingers where they tap restlessly against the café table’s surface. “You look good.”

      “I look like shit,” Iwaizumi rebooks bluntly, feeling the grit of sixty long hours on the road like a second skin.  “And I bet you do too, under those awful glasses.” Oikawa huffs a laugh and smiles. It is a little like gazing into the sun, that smile, Iwaizumi thinks; sooner or later you have to look away. But gods, what a sight.

      “All the same, it is good to see you Iwa-chan.”

      “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi warns, voice stern. Oikawa looks down.

      “I’m being charged with murder,” he says and leans back in his chair, putting a few crucial inches of space back between them — just enough to make Iwaizumi feel bereft as Oikawa’s hand drops away to pick his the mostly empty cup of coffee and throw back the dregs.

      “Someone’s dead,” Iwaizumi says, not so much a question as an affirmation. He had thought it would be something like this. “Because of you?”

      “I didn’t kill anyone,” Oikawa snaps, but the petulant edge in his voice makes Iwaizumi think a simple ‘no’ would have been a lie. He supposes it doesn’t much matter either way now; Iwaizumi already came this far. “I wouldn’t have run if it was just about me, but it’s not. I was working on something. Remember my Dreamshare research? It’s big, Iwa-chan; it’s important. I can’t let them stop me before it’s done.”

      “So not only are you asking me to help you evade incrassation, you’re asking me to join your crusade.” Iwaizumi rubs a hand over his eyes. He feels so hollow, like a ship battered and beached on the side of cliff, being smashed just a bit more every time a storm rolls in.

      “Dreamshare needs to be made legal and public knowledge.” The vehemence in Oikawa’s voice is low and gruff and cuts through the tired haze in Iwaizumi’s head. It makes him drop his hand back onto the table. He blinks slowly at Oikawa as he studies the way Oikawa’s mouth has hardened with bitter conviction. “Dreamshare needs to be in the hands of licensed, _supervised_ professionals where it can do good. The military may be sitting tight on the technology right now, but sooner or later it’s going to leak onto the back market and people will be using _my invention_ for dream rape and god knows what else and they will be mixing shit into my somnacin because the refined stuff is too expensive and I’m not going to just _let it happen_.”  

      Oikawa has leaned forward again during his hushed rant, and Iwaizumi mirrors his body language reflexively, turning his shoulders, dipping his head. If they were any closer, Iwaizumi would be feeling Oikawa’s breath on his lips.

      “So it’s a suicide mission then,” Iwaizumi murmurs, and abruptly feels cold. Cold and tired. Under his shirt, the torn photograph sticks to the skin over Iwaizumi’s heart — a reminder of reality.

      “Listen, I’m in contact with someone who can get my drug and the PASIV approved and out on the legal market — someone with a lot of pull everywhere. I almost had all the test documentation we needed when—”

      “When somebody died,” Iwaizumi says, allowing another piece of the puzzle to fall into place. The sun is high and sharp overhead, the sky a crisp blue. People mill across the square and around the fountain in twos and threes; their hands laden with shopping bags and their jackets thrown over arms or tied around their waists. Oikawa’s silence lasts for five long heartbeats.

      “It wasn’t the drug, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says at last, “It _wasn’t_.” Oikawa almost sounds like he believes it. “They found the guy in my apartment, and I don’t have a solid alibi — not one I can disclose at least. The body must have been planted there by the military — I’d never even seen the guy in my life — but of course he didn’t have a history with drugs, and he…” Oikawa looks away. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

      Iwaizumi rather thinks it does, but he can’t bring himself to press. The way Oikawa’s hands have begun to tremble makes him think he doesn’t want to know. Some doors are better left shut.

      “So you’re on the run now,” Iwaizumi prompts, letting Oikawa off the hook. “What exactly do you need me here for Oikawa? It’s not like you to ask for help.” There is a bitter edge to Iwaizumi’s words — the vestiges of old disappointment seeping through all the years and walls Iwaizumi has put between then and now. He is almost surprised to hear it still there; sometimes he convinces himself he has moved past it all.

      “The charges have complicated things,” Oikawa says, his voice tight. The line of his shoulders has tensed, ever sensitive to the slow shifts in Iwaizumi’s tone and posture. They were always like this, the two of them, decrypting each other’s moods as if reading them off the pages of a book and then reacting in closed loops of feedback. Even now, Iwaizumi thinks, Oikawa is the only person who has ever really learned to understand him. “I can’t publish the PASIV and my dreamshare findings under my own name, and my contact has gotten weary  — he thinks maybe the patent and the shares I’ve offered him won’t be worth the political backlash after all. I need to guarantee this venture will be profitable for him.”

      “How?”

      Oikawa fidgets and looks away — out at the crowds of people passing by. His mouth has turned down at the edges; his brown hair looks limp under that awful fedora.

      “Do you remember my extraction theory? Oikawa asks, “I know you never much liked my research, but I saw your name on a personnel list when I hacked the military server.” Oikawa huffs a dry, humourless laugh, “Imagine my surprise; to find out you were working in their dreamshare program after how you… Anyway.” Oikawa studiously does not shift his gaze away from the passing crowds.

      “You’re right,” Iwaizumi says slowly, “I never did like your research.”

      “But you remember,” Oikawa presses, finally turning back to face Iwaizumi again. The sun reflects off his shades like shields.

      “You had a theory, that a person’s subconscious would automatically hide secrets and past trauma in secure places — like a vault or a strongbox — where the trauma patient could then break in and confront it head on.” Iwaizumi leans back in his chair and tries to keep his face neutral. “In my experience, it rarely works.”

      “You’ve tried it,” Oikawa’s hand shoots out to clutch at Iwaizumi’s wrist. His fingers are cold where they press against Iwaizumi’s pulse point. Excitement plays across Oikawa’s features in a flash of brilliance before being fought down and contained.

      “Not exactly,” Iwaizumi says, slow and guarded. He tries to keep the disgust from his voice. “The military doesn’t much care about trauma patients you know. I wasn’t there to share theories on healing and recovery, and even if had been, I wouldn’t have. All I know is that extraction rarely works okay? Most of the time the dream collapses too quickly or the subject’s projections forces you out before you ever even get near the vault.”

      “I’ve been working on maze theory,” Oikawa gushes, his voice breathy and rushed, “you build the dreamscape as a maze and then even if the projections notice you, you’ll have a fair chance of leading them away from your target.”

      “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, and pulls his wrist from his best friend’s grasp, instead placing both hands palms down on the table’s greasy surface. He hates where this is going. He hates what Oikawa is about to ask of him. He injects steel into his voice as he leans forward. “Why am I here?”

      “Oil stocks,” Oikawa says, the excitement draining away and leaving him pale and grim. “There is going to be a pump and dump sometime next month. If I can extract the time and date for the dump I can sell the information to my contact and he’ll get Dreamshare on the market for me.”

      “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says again, slow and hard, feeling the coldness of fear clutching at his heart. “Look me in the eye and ask me to do this.”

      Oikawa hesitates, and then he slowly reaches up and removes his glasses.

      He looks haggard without the put-on nonchalance of the douchebag aviators — red-eyed and pale. But Oikawa looks at Iwaizumi meets his gaze and holds it. “Please,” Oikawa whispers, vulnerable — exposed and forced out of hiding, “I can’t do this alone.” He says, “You’re the only one I trust.”

      Iwaizumi doesn’t think Oikawa has any idea what he is really asking. Has no right to be asking it. But Iwaizumi nods, because he was always going to say yes and they both know it.

      “Okay,” Iwaizumi says, his voice hoarse. “When do we start?”

 

* * *

 

 **2017 - TOKYO**  

      Iwaizumi and Oikawa grew up together. They were best friends from the minute Oikawa knocked Iwaizumi over with his tricycle in day-care, and it only took one enthusiastic conversation between their mothers to learn that they lived on the same street — only three houses apart.

      They attended the same elementary school, then middle and high school. Eventually, Iwaizumi followed Oikawa to Tokyo for college.

      In hindsight, the co-dependence is glaringly obvious, but at the time it felt like the easiest, most natural thing to do as they moved into a shared dorm room and then later into a marginally larger apartment.

      Oikawa delved into the complex world of biochemistry and nanotechnology while Iwaizumi settled comfortably on machine engineering. Oikawa has barely turned twenty-one when he broaches the subject of Dreamshare for the first time.

      “Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls distractedly from his sprawl over their ratty, second-hand couch. He has a stack of printouts in his hands and more loose pages spread out over the floor and coffee table. A few great boring-looking textbooks are lodged between his legs. His fluffy brown hair spills out over the couch’s armrest where he has propped his head despite how it makes him complain of kinks and aches.

      “Yeah?” Iwaizumi looks up from where he sits on the floor, leaning against the couch with his own textbook in his lap. He has to swat away the papers Oikawa dangle down into his face as Oikawa flails excitedly.

      “Have you read this article on synchronized dreaming? Someone just published a new twin study; they claim they can prompt a shared dream experience by introducing a certain stimulant during REM sleep.”

      “That’s pretty cool,” Iwaizumi allows, arching an eyebrow. “You think it could work on people who aren’t born with…” he makes a vague gesture towards his head, “you know, ESP or whatever?”

      Oikawa abruptly shifts up onto an elbow, dislodging a book from the couch and sending it to the floor with a _thump_ as he stares wide-eyed and excited down at Iwaizumi.

      “Iwa-chan, that’s a great idea. Then I could see your dreams! No wait, I could make you dream about me _all the time_. You’d never have to be without me ever again.”

      “Well shit,” Iwaizumi snorts a laugh, “That’s just terrifying. As if I’d want to deal with your trashy ass when I’m asleep.” Oikawa aims a pillow at Iwaizumi’s head in mock-outrage but he is laughing as well, his cheeks dimpled in a smile that only ever makes an appearance when they are alone. The sight of it makes something inside Iwaizumi go soft.

      “Think about it though.” Oikawa’s eyes has taken on a determined shine — a little too bright and a little too passionate. “If this stimulant works like they claim, then you’d only have to find a way to engineer a feedback of brainwaves during REM sleep and the stimulant should help the brain translate the input on its own. We could literally walk each other’s dreams.” Oikawa sits up and abruptly begins rooting through his papers, pulling out stray pages and laying them haphazardly aside or in piles.

      “You’re rather into this idea,” Iwaizumi notes with some amusement, “shouldn’t you be curing cancer or something instead?”

      “Someone else can do that,” Oikawa insists, leaning over the couch to grab his laptop. “Me? I could be the creator of the Matrix if I do this. Don’t you want to be a sci-fi villain Iwa-chan?”

      “I think I’d rather be the hero, it seems more rewarding in the long term,” Iwaizumi says, getting to his feet and collecting a dirty coffee cup from where it has been teetering on the table’s edge. He pauses to look at Oikawa for a moment  — to take in the sweatpants and the washed-out high school volleyball hoodie and the way he has tucked his bare feet between the couches’ pillows to keep them warm. Oikawa looks intent as he taps away on his laptop; there is a certain glint in his eyes and a certain curl to his mouth that makes something in Iwaizumi weary.

      Iwaizumi knows his best friend — he isn’t blind to all the flaws and idiosyncrasies that make up Oikawa Tooru, and he thinks, out of all them, it is Oikawa’s need for acknowledgement that scares him the most.

      Slowly, Iwaizumi sets the cup back down and then moves to lean in over Oikawa, placing a familiar hand on the other man’s thigh. “Hey,” he murmurs. It takes a few seconds before Oikawa looks up and blinks owlishly at him. “Don’t get too lost in this.”

      Oikawa smiles a little — just a soft quirk of his mouth  — and runs a hand over the one Iwaizumi has on him. He says, “You worry too much.”

 

* * *

 

**2023 - COPENHAGEN**

      The apartment Oikawa is renting is a small, high-ceilinged place, located in a corner of Copenhagen where the roads have narrowed into tight one-way lanes, and where haggard-looking men sit on doorsteps and chuck back beers like it’s their profession. Oikawa pays the landlord with a bundle of cash and a grimace and then shuts the door behind them.

      The apartment itself is neat enough; if you disregard the fact that the bathroom seems to be out in the hall and that the odd-angled walls ensure you wouldn’t be able to fit a double bed in anywhere despite there being plenty of square-feet to go around.

      A large table stands in middle of the room, its surface covered in papers and diagrams and vials filled with yellow somnacin samples. A single mattress has been pushed awkwardly up against the far wall, bare except for a blanket and a pillow abandoned in a messy pile and a suitcase with clothes hanging haphazardly out of its confines.

      Iwaizumi takes it all in silently and tries not to judge. He has his own bag with him now — a backpack filled with socks and T-shirts and the gun he picked up in Milano and had mailed to a pick-up box in Copenhagen. He sets the backpack down by the door next to his shoes, and then approaches Oikawa’s workstation with the slow burn of trepidation churning in his gut.

      “So,” Iwaizumi says, finally breaking the silence that has been hanging over them since they parted at the café three hours ago and met back up here, at this address. “Oil stocks, right?”

      “Yeah,” Oikawa shifts and fidgets, breaking another less noticeable stasis as he unfreezes from his spot by the front door. “I mean yes. Oil stocks.”

      Oikawa is nervous, Iwaizumi realizes, as the other man makes his way to the table and starts shifting through the papers, biting his lips and squinting down at diagrams.

      “Break it down for me Oikawa,” Iwaizumi prompts, “who's the target?”

      “Target?” Oikawa blinks at him, frowns, “Oh, the mark, you mean.” He picks up a folder and holds it out for Iwaizumi to take. The folder is a dossier containing photos, recipes and detailing the life and background of one Sawamura Daichi.

      Oikawa comes to stand by Iwaizumi’s shoulder as he shifts through the pages, carefully scanning them without really knowing what parts are important. The dossiers he was handed during his time in the military had been different; they had been neat, perfunctory things, containing clinical psychological profiles pared with photos of hard-eyed soldiers.

      Instead, Iwaizumi now finds himself staring down at a photo of two Japanese men holding hands, caught in a moment of unawareness as they lean against a balustrade, their eyes crinkling as they smile at each other.  In the background a statue of the little mermaid perches just above dark grey waters.

      “This guy, Sawamura Daichi,” Oikawa leans closer and points to the square-jawed, black haired man in the photo. “He works mostly as an adviser for people who are looking to put their money in tax havens. But he also organizes pump and dumps of specific stock. He is allegedly the only man who knows when the oil stocks will inflate.”

      “And the other guy?” The light from the camera flash is caught in the silver of the second man’s hair. He wears an easy, effortless smile, but his eyes are soft and knowing.

      “Koushi Sugawara, he’s a lawyer and Daichi’s partner. They got married a few days before this photo was taken.” Oikawa’s voice is strangely even, but Iwaizumi reads the echo of envy in the stutter of his breathing. That is all it is though, just an echo — just a distant longing for something beautiful, no different from the desire to own a piece of art or a fast car. The photo taunts Iwaizumi with the image of an abandoned dream.

      Oikawa must recognize Iwaizumi’s silence for what it is, because there is an edge of hardness to his voice when he next speaks, “Just because these men are a public homosexual power-couple doesn’t mean they are good people, Iwa-chan. What Sawamura Daichi does is illegal.”

      “And what we’re about to do isn’t?” The words are out before Iwaizumi can stop them, and they pollute the air between them like smog. Oikawa’s eyes are tight, but his mouth curls up into the imitation of a smile.

      “I think that’s a little different, Iwa-chan,” he says, aiming for lightness and missing by an inch or so. Someone else might have bought the facade. “At least I pay my taxes.”

      “Sure you do,” Iwaizumi says. It is too late for morality and ethics at this point anyway; you can only kill so many men before your arguments are nothing but hypocrisy. So what if these men in the photo are part of something Iwaizumi once thought he could have? Iwaizumi closes the dossier. “So what’s the plan?”

      Oikawa talks him through it systematically, explaining Daichi’s business trip to Denmark, and the hotel with the accessible windows and out-dated security system. He explains the layout of a fancy up-scale office scaling the Tokyo skyline and the little strongbox kept behind a row of fake books.

      “It shouldn’t take more than two hours in real time,” Oikawa says as he shuffles around papers and pulls out a time-translation chart comparing different somnacin compounds. “We will do tests of course, but with a stable compound that should give us about eight hours of dreamtime.”

      “And how exactly are you going to get that safe open?” Iwaizumi frowns down at a detailed blueprint of a strongbox’ mechanical lock. “If we try dynamite on a safe this small we’ll just destroy the content, not to mention we’ll bring all the dreamer’s projections down on us and collapse the dream.”

      Oikawa has been watching him with an edge of something careful all through their back and forth; cataloguing Iwaizumi in that same way he used to analyse new enemies and competitors back in high school — back when their lives had revolved around volleyball instead of military-funded drugs. And maybe Iwaizumi thinks he sees hope in the line of Oikawa’s shoulders. Maybe Oikawa’s hands twitch over the table and make aborted motions into the periphery of Iwaizumi’s personal space as they lean together over some chart or blueprint. Maybe there is something electric in the way Oikawa moves and speaks and breathes.

      Maybe it is Iwaizumi who feels like his skin is buzzing — like his heart is doing overtime being so near Oikawa again after all this time.

      “Don’t you worry Iwa-chan,” Oikawa chirps, “I already thought of that.” He points to the serial number on top-left corner of the strongbox’s blueprint. “This generation of safes were born with a system flaw — the electric wiring shorts out the built-in battery if you run a charge through it. We just build this safe into the dream and we should be able to open it with a stun-gun.”

      Iwaizumi runs a hand over his mouth and shakes his head.

      “Oikawa, just because the safe has a flaw here in the real world, it might not in the dream. If Sawamura perceives the safe as unflawed then it’s simply not going to open without the correct combination.”

      “But _we_ perceive the flaw, Iwa-chan. It’ll open, because Sawamura can’t know for sure the flaw _isn’t_ there.”

      “Huh,” Iwaizumi blinks up into chocolate brown eyes, “That’s actually quite brilliant. Who’d have thought?”

      “Mean, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, and the grin flashing across his features is the first genuine one Iwaizumi has seen from him in four years.

 

* * *

 

**2018 - TOKYO**

       “Hey, are you still in here?” Iwaizumi raps his knuckles against the main laboratory door. The University’s halls are dark and empty by this hour, but Oikawa has special access to the labs and he sometimes disappears into his work and doesn’t come home for days. Iwaizumi doesn’t exactly have access, but he has an arrangement with the janitor.

      “Oi, Trashy-kawa! Get your ass out of here already,” Iwaizumi yells, and makes his way into the labs, wearily eyeing dark, stink-cabinets and precarious glass tube contraptions. Light streams out from under a door a little further down, and Iwaizumi approaches it with resignation. He finds Oikawa sitting hunched over a microscope like he knew he would.

      A series of brain scans are tacked up on a whiteboard over a table where three-dozen stoppered test tubes stand, filled with opaque yellow liquids. A jumble of a machine sits next to Oikawa on the table, half taken apart.

      Iwaizumi leans against the doorjamb, and crosses his arms over his chest. “I thought we were going to the movies tonight.” Oikawa startles in his seat, jerking away from the microscope.

      “Wha—,“ Oikawa blinks several times, “What time is it?”

      Iwaizumi sighs. “It’s almost midnight.”

      “What?”

      “The movie was at eight. I watched it without you.”

      “You watched it witho— Iwa-chan how could you!” Oikawa looks properly outraged.

      “It was pretty bad actually. Half the cast died.”

      “Spoilers!” Oikawa squeaks, “That’s a violation the best friend-code.”

      “What best friend-code?” Iwaizumi snorts, and then gestures to the brain scans. “What are these anyway?”

      “Oh admiring my brain are you. Not that I can blame you, it is quite a beautiful specimen,” Oikawa’s eyes glint playfully under the lab’s fluorescent lights. There is an unspoken apology in there somewhere.

      “That deformed thing? No wonder you’re so weird.” Iwaizumi steps into the room and smacks the back of Oikawa’s head lightly. “Are you going to tell me what they actually are? It’s the least you can do after standing me up like that.” The words slip out of Iwaizumi’s mouth before he can reel them back in. He stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets and pretends he didn’t spend all day hyping himself into holding Oikawa’s hand during the movie, only to be left standing outside on the sidewalk long after the cinema doors had been closed.

      “I was testing how long a natural lucid dream during REM lasts. See here?” Oikawa runs a finger over the one of the scans, “There’s fast electrical brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex during a lucid dream. But we’re limited to just around 15 minutes of REM sleep before another sleep cycle starts. That’s hardly enough for what I have in mind, you know. I’ve been timing it, 15 minutes will only give you what feels like about an hour in the dream right now.”

      Iwaizumi isn’t looking at the scans, his eyes have instead settled on Oikawa’s strong, graceful fingers where they trace over the glossy paper. Oikawa’s left pinky is slightly crocked from where he broke it in second grade playing volleyball, and his nails are bitten down into blunt stubs. Iwaizumi loves these hands — has loved them since Oikawa taught him to play cat’s cradle when they were four. A bruise sits on the inside of Oikawa’s wrist, just barely peeking out from the cuff of Oikawa’s sleeve.

      “I think I can expand the dreamtime a little bit with a more refined compound,” Oikawa says, frowning in thought, “but I read a study on extended sleep cycles, and I think I’ve figured out how to—“ Oikawa cuts off as Iwaizumi snags Oikawa’s wrist and turns it over.

      “What’s this?” The bruise is a puncture wound from a needle.

      “It’s nothing,” Oikawa says and flashes his teeth in a smile, “I was just testing the pulse sensor on my PASIV.” He extracts his wrist from Iwaizumi’s tight grip and tugs his shirt cuff down over the bruise. “The machine won’t need any clunky head pieces if I get this right.”

      Iwaizumi searches Oikawa’s eyes for deception, for a dilated pupils or redness. Oikawa just looks tired though, like he hasn’t slept in a while.

      “You’ll promise me you aren’t being stupid right?” Iwaizumi reaches out and presses his fingertips gently against the skin of Oikawa’s neck. Oikawa is taller than him by exactly five centimetres — an old point of contention between them — but Iwaizumi doesn’t need height to catch Oikawa’s gaze and hold it. “Tooru, promise me you won’t test this shit on yourself just because some of the initial tests are going well.”

      Oikawa is a little wide-eyed as he reaches up to wrap a hand around the one Iwaizumi has pressed against his neck. He keeps their hands there, steady against his racing pulse. Oikawa swallows and then smiles that smile Iwaizumi has always thought of as his.

      “I’m ambitious not suicidal, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa chides, a little breathlessly. Iwaizumi frowns, because that wasn’t a promise.

      “You’ve been pushing lately,” Iwaizumi insists. “It’s like watching you back in middle school practicing your jump serve. Except, you know, you’re sitting on a chair all day staring into a microscope. What’s the rush?”

      “There’s no rush—” Oikawa starts to say but Iwaizumi cuts him off.

      “You’re rushing Oikawa. Your ass is getting flat from all that sitting around I swear.” Oikawa visibly flinches and makes an aborted sort of twisting motion as if to catch a glimpse of his own ass.

      “You _take that back Iwa-chan!”_ Oikawa hisses indignantly.

      “Just tell me what’s going on in that head of yours for once. Please.” Oikawa sighs and looks away. His shoulders slump.

      “The people funding my research have been demanding proof of progress. And there _is_ progress, but it just never seems like it’s enough.” Oikawa grimaces, and frowns down at the test tubes full of opaque yellow liquid.

      “I thought you said all your funding came from an anonymous research fund?”

      Oikawa nods, and then grimaces again, “I does, but I’ve been going over some of the contract clauses again and I think the government may be involved somehow. Either way they have legal right to demand progress reports or the funds will be cut.”

      Iwaizumi blinks at his best friend, a frown still firmly in place as he considers the dark shadows under Oikawa’s eyes and how even Oikawa’s normally over-styled hair is verging on limp. Hell, Oikawa is even wearing his glasses for once.

      “You’re being an idiot about this,” Iwaizumi decides with a huff, and punches Oikawa’s shoulder for good measure. “You’re the smartest person I know, and you’ve already proven that this dreamshare stuff can be more than just a pipe dream. So slow down and do it right.”

      They stare at each other until the steel in Oikawa’s eyes erodes and gives way. “You’re such a brute, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa complains as he rubs theatrically his arm, but there is a grin on his lips now. “How about we go get something to eat? I’m starving.”

      “I bet,” Iwaizumi agrees dryly, “And you’re paying.”

      “Chivalry really is dead. How are you ever going to get anyone to date you like this?” Oikawa gathers his things and locks the office door behind him, ushering Iwaizumi out of the labs with a casual hand resting at the dip of Iwaizumi’s spine.

      “I’d be worried about that if I was trying to impress you,” Iwaizumi mutters and hunches his shoulders a little against the bitter irony of his own lie. Oikawa just laughs and slings his arm around Iwaizumi’s shoulders as they walk through the university’s dark hallways.

      “You should be trying to impress me,” Oikawa declares. “After all, I’m the smartest, most brilliant person you know.”

      “Most humble too,” Iwaizumi snarks, but his fingers find purchase in Oikawa’s shirt and fists there, holding him close. “Too bad your personality stinks.”

      Oikawa flicks his access card across a scanner and pushes open a door leading out to the parking lot. The outside world greets them with the wet hum of heavy rain and the sharp smell of clean midnight air. They hover in the doorway, sides still pressed together.

      “You didn’t happen to bring an umbrella did you?” Oikawa asks without much hope.

      “It wasn’t raining when I left,” Iwaizumi mutters defensively. “Stay and wait, or make a run for it?”

      Oikawa leans back against the building and looks up at the sky. “I figure we can wait a few minutes,” he decides, “There’s no hurry.” Iwaizumi smiles and leans back next to his best friend — content to wait there a little while.

      “I really am sorry,” Oikawa says. “About today. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Things slip past me.”

      “It’s alright,” Iwaizumi allows — generous with his forgiveness now that he has Oikawa’s arm around his shoulders and a night of fastfood and banter ahead of him.

      “It’s not,” Oikawa disagrees with vehemence, and turns his head to catch Iwaizumi’s gaze, close enough to kiss if only Iwaizumi were a little braver. Oikawa says, “I’m not blind you know.”

      He says, “I was going kiss you tonight, during a fight scene.”

      So Iwaizumi leans in, and he forgets Oikawa never promised him anything.

 

 

* * *

 

 **2020 - UKRAINE**  

      The first time Iwaizumi gets shot down from the sky by a heat-seeking missile, he still has seven hours left in the dream. He dies slowly in the wreckage of his Japanese fighter jet, the shrapnel in his gut poisoning his blood even as his skin boils black and oozes through the cracks of third degree burns. He lies there, gasping desperately for air, and all he knows is the cold, clawing of fear and pain and an all-consuming loneliness so acid it almost drowns out all the rest.

      The taste and shape of Oikawa’s name hovers on his lips as he jerks awake.

      After that, Iwaizumi keeps a gun strapped to his chest whenever he is under, and every time he wakes up, gasping from the imagined pain of a bullet to the brain, he thinks of Oikawa and the contagious naiveté of academia, and he thinks of good intentions.

 

* * *

 

 **2019 - TOKYO**  

      The stretch of skin beneath Iwaizumi’s palms is soft and yielding. He curls around the warmth of Oikawa, hooking an arm around a waist and slipping his hand up to capture the steady beat of a heart in his palm. The skin of Oikawa’s neck tastes of salt and sweat when pressed against Iwaizumi’s lips.

      The heat beneath the covers is almost overpowering — verging on the uncomfortable — if not for how it is rendering his limbs languid and boneless, trapping Iwaizumi’s mind in the limbo between wakefulness and sleep.

      Oikawa stirs, murmuring contentment and reaches backwards to paw at Iwaizumi’s ass, pulling him closer. Then Oikawa shifts and rolls over, opening his thighs in a lazy invitation as the covers slips from their shoulders and greedy fingers find purchase in private places. It is almost perfect; the way Oikawa’s tongue caresses Iwaizumi’s adams apple and the way their hips slot together in a lazy search for friction.

      The shrill of Oikawa’s phone interrupts the moment. Oikawa groans as Iwaizumi cants his hips and slides a hand in between them, the sense of urgency suddenly intruding on their morning.

      “Dammit,” Oikawa gasps, as the ringing ends and then immediately picks up again. His eyes are wide and awake now, and Oikawa moans into Iwaizumi’s mouth as Iwaizumi picks up the pace a little, his hand stroking both their cocks with practiced firmness.

      “Who the fuck is calling you this early,” Iwaizumi complains, breathless, and then nips at Oikawa’s collarbone, enjoying the slow build of pleasure under his skin, and the way Oikawa’s hands have begun teasing his nipples to hardness.

      “Don’t know, don’t care,” Oikawa mutters, and shivers as precome moistens the dry slide of Iwaizumi’s hand. “Did we use up all the lube already?”

      “Last night, yeah,” Iwaizumi grunts, and then groans as the phone starts ringing for a third time. “You should get that, it might be important.”

      “Morning sex is important,” Oikawa mutters, just to be contrary, but then reluctantly pulls away, detangling himself from Iwaizumi’s limbs before leaning down to kiss him once on the mouth in a soft apology.

      “Who is it?” Iwaizumi asks, lying back on the mattress and stroking himself lazily, watching as Oikawa clambers naked out of bed to retrieve the phone from where it has been charging on the dresser. There is a tiny moment where Oikawa tenses — standing there with his back turned and the still ringing phone clutched in his hand — but then the tension eases, lost in the loose shrug of his shoulders.

      “An unknown number,” Oikawa says, “I bet it is my bank advisor, she’s been riding my ass about my credit score lately. Mind if I take it?” Oikawa is out of the room before Iwaizumi can reply, the bedroom door swinging shut with a click behind him. Iwaizumi stares at the closed door in disgruntlement and then gives up on stroking his cock after just a few more half-hearted pulls.

      The bedroom smells of stale sex and funk, so Iwaizumi climbs out of bed with a heavy sigh and goes to open the window, not bothering with clothes or underwear as he leans out over the windowsill and gulps down a lungful of cool city air. His eyes wander over the stretch of street visible from their shared bedroom window, nodding politely at his elderly neighbour as she hobbles down the sidewalk for her morning walk. She scowls at him and waves a fist — a product of some offence Oikawa managed to cause on their first day living in the building, and which Iwaizumi has not yet managed to rectify.

      “Mrs Tanaka still giving you trouble?” Oikawa asks, and Iwaizumi turns to find his boyfriend leaning in the doorway, now clothed in briefs and a wrinkled shirt he must have scrounged up from somewhere on the living room floor. Oikawa’s gaze drifts down to where Iwaizumi’s cock still hangs half-hard, “And are we into exhibitionism now?”

      “It’s not like she can actually tell I’m naked,” Iwaizumi says, grinning wolfishly as he leans back against the windowsill and brazenly spreads his legs further, allowing Oikawa a better view.

      Oikawa bites his lower lip, hunger moving in his eyes even as a smile cants up the corners of his lips and a blush plays across the plains of his cheeks.

      Iwaizumi experiences one of those moments where the world falls away and all he knows is his love for this man — for Oikawa Tooru. His chest is so full with it — the need to reach out and just touch, just be near. And Iwaizumi may have always loved Oikawa, but recently these moments have come more frequently and lingered for longer — always simmering just under his skin, ready to bubble up at any moment and steal away his breath.

      “I need to go,” Oikawa says, exhaling loudly, breaking the moment. His knuckles are white where they clutch the doorjamb. “I’ll be back for dinner.”

      “Really?” Iwaizumi smirks, unconvinced, “It can’t wait an hour?”

      “It can’t,” Oikawa insists, and there is an edge of harshness in his tone Iwaizumi can’t quite reconcile with the rest of their morning. Iwaizumi frowns as Oikawa snatches up a pair of jeans from the floor and starts tugging them on.

      “Who was on phone?” Iwaizumi asks, worry battling it out with irritation and winning by a small margin. “What’s going on?”

      “It was just the bank, something about a weird deposit. I’ll sort it out and then head to the labs.”

      “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi tries, but Oikawa is already retreating out of the bedroom, picking up his bag and putting on his shoes.

      “I’ll see you tonight, Iwa-chan,” he calls, and then the front door slams shut.

      Iwaizumi is left standing there, naked and chilled from the open window. He wonders what kind of fucking bank advisor Oikawa thinks calls at seven thirty in the morning.

 

* * *

 

      There are signs after that. Or maybe there were signs all along and Iwaizumi just wasn’t paying attention. Either way, he notices now, when Oikawa leaves the room to take a phone call — the way Oikawa comes back antsy and irritated, the way he looks permanently exhausted and wrung out.

      There is a moment, while Iwaizumi is searching the university halls, looking for Oikawa so he can drag his boyfriend’s ass home, where Iwaizumi spots a pair of broad-shouldered men in sharp suits, just as they leave the tiny office with Oikawa’s name taped to the door. There is broken glass on the floor when Iwaizumi steps into the office just a moment later.

      Oikawa refuses to say anything about it, but he starts dividing his time between the apartment and the labs after that, working from home whenever Iwaizumi is out. At first Iwaizumi thinks this is a change for the better — it means Oikawa is never far from reach, that Iwaizumi can fall asleep every night with Oikawa curled in his arms, cold feet tucked against Iwaizumi’s shins. It means having Oikawa in the mornings and afternoons, tasting and taking and giving.

      It means, when Iwaizumi comes home two hours early one day, that he is unprepared for the sight of Oikawa, lying reclined on their strained, second-hand couch with a needle slipped neatly into a vein in his forearm and a tube connecting him to the PASIV.

      There is antiseptic, cotton pads, and packages of sterilized needles arranged neatly on a towel spread out on their ratty coffee table. A basin stands on the floor by Oikawa's head, placed there, Iwaizumi thinks, with practical detachment. Water coats the basin’s bottom — meant to prevent any lingering smell and acid damage.

      Slowly, Iwaizumi moves to stand over Oikawa. He doesn't realize how bad he is shaking until he presses his fingers against Oikawa's pulse point, and he feels his knees buckle under him — sinking to the floor — as he registers the lethargic thump of blood pumping beneath his fingertips. The rise and fall of Oikawa's chest is barely perceptible — barely there at all. The rapid flicker of eyes moving beneath closed eyelids is the only noticeable sign of life.

      The urge to shake Oikawa awake is a physical need. Anger simmers and burns in his throat, accompanied by the taste of blood on his tongue — because Oikawa should know better. He should _know better._

      Iwaizumi doesn't dare disturb the medically induced rest though — hardly dares touch Oikawa at all for fear of upsetting some delicate chemical balance or a brain wave frequency. The PASIV’s dial ticks down, second by second, click by click, but Iwaizumi wouldn't know how to keep the emptying vial of somnacin from entering Oikawa’s bloodstream — not without taking the machine apart completely.  

      “Oikawa, you fucking idiot,” Iwaizumi whispers, and clutches at this own hair, his shirt, his heart as he quietly shakes, curled half-sitting on the floor, until it feels like all his limbs have come apart and gone numb.

      He drags himself from the floor to the recliner when he finally regains some composure, suddenly overcome with the need for space — the need to distance himself from the situation, and from Oikawa. He thinks of all the hours Oikawa spends alone, in that little office at the university with Oikawa’s name taped neatly to the door and all the vials of yellow liquid locked safely away in a private refrigerator. He thinks of calling his mother, just two weeks prior, and telling her _Yes, I’m going to ask him soon_. Telling her, _of course we are coming home for New Years Eve — it is Tooru and I_ — _he isn’t going to say no._ Because why wouldn’t Tooru be coming? When were the two of them ever really apart?

      The PASIV ticks and ticks, eating away seconds and minutes with slow, painful precision, as Iwaizumi waits and burns and feels sick with fear.

      Eventually, the PASIV dials down, the absence of its soft noise almost worse than the waiting, and Iwaizumi scarcely breathes as he waits for Oikawa to stir. A handful of seconds drags by before Oikawa suddenly lets out a gasp, as if punched awake — his lungs audibly straining as he jerks halfway into a sitting position, and then rolls over to heave up the contents of his stomach into the basin.  The acid smell of vomit sours the air, and Iwaizumi twitches — his anger nailing him to his seat even as his instincts scream at him to go help.

      Oikawa dry heaves one last time, spit dripping from his chin, before slumping boneless back onto the couch, weak, his eyes unseeing. Slowly, Oikawa lifts a hand to cover his eyes, as if to shield them from the sparse afternoon light filling the apartment.

      “Are you done?” Iwaizumi asks, and he is surprised by how even his voice is — how flat. Oikawa startles badly, jerking once more into a sitting position, and his eyes widen as he sees Iwaizumi, sitting in the recliner across from him. Iwaizumi recognises the look on Oikawa’s face as guilt.

      “Iwa-chan,” Oikawa makes a move as if to run a nervous hand through his brown hair, but the needle still in his arm stops him; makes him glance quickly back and forth between it and Iwaizumi as he tugs it from his flesh. “I didn’t know you’d be home so soon.”

      “Have you completely lost your mind?” Iwaizumi asks, because it is the only intelligible thought running through his brain.

      Oikawa sways in his seat and looks like he might hurl again.

      “Can we have this discussion later?” he begs. “I know this looks bad, but it’s not dangerous. Aright? It’s not a big deal.”

      “Oikawa, you’re experimenting, _alone,_ in our apartment, with a drug you compounded yourself.” Iwaizumi shakes his head, half-disbelieving, “Please explain to me how that isn’t dangerous? What if something happened — who was going to drive you to the hospital to get that shit pumped out of you?”

      “I know what I’m doing,” Oikawa reasons, defensive, “I’m telling you, the somnacin compound isn’t that dangerous.”

      “Oikawa, I just watched you throw up into our wash bowl. I came home and found you lying comatose on our couch and—,” Iwaizumi exhales sharply in an effort to keep his voice down, “And I don’t know what all those phone calls are about, or what those pricks hounding you at the labs want — because you won’t fucking _tell me —_ but from where I stand it’s obvious you’re out of your depth here.”

      Something sparks in Oikawa's eyes — some combination of indignation and defiance, and Iwaizumi can practically see Oikawa mentally digging his heels in.

      “You’re right,” Oikawa snaps, lethargy burned away by anger. “You have no idea what you're talking about. My dreamshare research is going to be the future. Here,” Oikawa begins picking up needles and new tubing, “I'll take you down into a dream with me and you'll see. The nausea is just a bi-product of the anaesthetics, not the somnacin. I'm still working on a better alternative, but it's—”

      Iwaizumi blanches. “I'm not going down into one of these dreams with you Oikawa. You're not hearing me. I'm saying you need to step back and _think._ Do you even know who these people funding you are? You're rushing through all this so fast I'm not sure you've even stopped to consider the ethics of this machine you're building.”

      “I can _show you_ , Iwa-chan. Dreamshare opens up so many possibilities — it’ll revolutionize the way we understand our own psyche. And the things we can _do_ down there — it’s pure creation. There is nothing like it.”

      “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi hisses, trying to stem the flow of Oikawa’s words, “All of this—” Iwaizumi waves a hand at the PASIV, and the needles and at the pallid shade of Oikawa’s skin, “it scares me. You’re scaring me.” He rubs a hand over his face, feeling his shoulders slump forward, and he stares down at his hands, clasped together over his knees, and feels sick with all of it — feels the tears burning in his throat. “You’re hurtling forward at two-hundred kilometres per hour with no breaks, and you’re telling me you don’t even know where the fucking road ends.”

      Oikawa grows quiet, and then Iwaizumi feels a hand slide gently over his shoulder and down his arm as Oikawa comes to kneel before him, twining their fingers together.

      “You’re blowing this way out of proportion,” Oikawa murmurs, “I got this, alright? I know what I’m doing.”

      “You have to promise me not to use the PASIV when you’re alone, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, hoarse and quiet, “I can’t make you stop, but this isn’t high school volleyball anymore. If something goes wrong it won’t just be a busted knee or a chance at nationals you’re throwing away. You understand that right? You’re messing with the chemistry in your brain.”

      “I promise,” Oikawa soothes, stroking a thumb into the hollow of Iwaizumi’s palm. He sounds sincere, tender, but Iwaizumi looks up into those brown eyes, and he knows Oikawa thinks himself generous — accommodating. Iwaizumi will take it though — he will take every tiny concession and every vague promise and it will have to be enough.

      He will take whatever he can get, because that is all Iwaizumi has ever been able to get out of Oikawa anyway.

 

* * *

 

 **2023 - COPENHAGEN**  

      The hotel room Iwaizumi has paid for is a bland affair, but it is only two kilometres from the apartment Oikawa is renting and it offers the silence Iwaizumi needs to lie down and close his eyes.

      Sleep has become a listless affair for him, perfunctory and soulless. It is one of those side effects of the somnacin drug Iwaizumi never knew about until he was hooking up to a PASIV every day for hours on end. After a while, he stopped dreaming naturally all together.

      It is okay though; Iwaizumi doesn’t mind the grey haze of dreamless unconsciousness, — he isn’t sure he could handle his own subconscious anymore, if he had to face it outside the parameters of carefully constructed dreamscape.

      Sleep during a somnacin-induced dream is a restless, draining thing — he wakes up woozy and tired and feeling like he could sleep for a week. It is a truth Iwaizumi learned too late. It is a truth that haunts him now, whenever he allows himself to reflect on those few precious years in university, when Oikawa always looked so tired and Iwaizumi wrote it off as stress.

      Now, Iwaizumi keeps his gun on the nightstand when he sleeps. He has never had cause to fire a gun at anyone in the waking world, but the cool weight of a firearm in his palm calms him in those first few seconds of confused wakefulness. It lends him the knowledge that he can shoot himself awake if the world fails to right itself completely; if the torn photograph pressed against his skin is whole and intact.

      Iwaizumi drags himself from bed while the day is still pale and young. Denmark is far enough North for the sun to have risen well into the sky despite the early hour. The streets are empty when he makes his way outside — the city still soundly asleep. He misses the mountains and forests of his childhood in Miyagi, and he misses the relentless beat of a never sleeping Tokyo. He misses the sound of his mother tongue with an almost consuming ache he hadn’t known he felt, until he heard it from Oikawa’s lips the day before.

      His route to Oikawa’s apartment takes him over Copenhagen’s old city moats, where light reflects off the still water like they are pieces of foreign sky caught and trapped on the ground. Iwaizumi once walked a dream where every wall was a mirror and no door led the same place twice. There had been a room just like these artificial lakes, all pale sky and grey shadowy clouds, and there had been another room as well, behind the glass, accessible only after Iwaizumi took a sledgehammer to the illusion.

      Iwaizumi doesn’t know what happens when you break all the defences of a mind — when you shatter through the walls and delusions that hold up the sanctity of a person’s sanity. He just knows there were secrets in that room not meant for him, and he knows he took them anyway.

 

      Oikawa is awake when Iwaizumi reaches the apartment. His shirt is crisp and clean, and his hair has been styled into that messy do he has been perfecting since middle school. There is tea brewing on the tiny stovetop and it fills the room with the scent of mint and jasmine. The sight and smell is familiar enough that Iwaizumi gets a little lost in it — like he has stepped into one of those private dreams the military warned them never to engage in.

      The dark, sleepless bruises under Oikawa's eyes ruin the illusion — just enough to ground Iwaizumi in reality and let him approach the worktable calmly. Oikawa smiles at him — just a quick flash of teeth — and then offers him a mug.

      “I finished building the dreamscape last night,” Oikawa says, “I added another floor and the hidden stairwell you wanted. I’ll have to walk you through the whole maze a few times if we’re going to pull this off. We should time each run to be sure.”

      Iwaizumi nods at Oikawa, and silently settles into one of the two lone chairs populating the apartment. He gazes down into his mug, wishing the tea wasn’t stale on his tongue. In every limb he feels the gnawing hollowness of displacement — of being both exactly where he should be, and a million miles from it all together.

      Oikawa hovers a few feet away uncertainly, sensing Iwaizumi’s mood and shifting his weight from foot to foot, before finally taking the chair next to Iwaizumi. He places a hand on Iwaizumi’s arm and leans forward just enough to breach the boundary of personal space.

      “Iwa-chan,” Oikawa’s voice shapes around the old nickname like it is a well-loved treasure. Another hand comes to rest on Iwaizumi’s shoulder, to press against his neck, to trace the stubble on his jaw. Iwaizumi lets himself be pulled in — lets Oikawa wrap arms around his shoulders and twist fingers into his hair. Iwaizumi’s forehead comes to rest just above Oikawa’s collarbone, where the smell of familiar detergent makes something in Iwaizumi’s chest contract with unshed tears.

      It is an awkward embrace, sitting as they are with their knees barely touching and with Iwaizumi’s fingers still curled around the stale mug of tea in his lap. Oikawa sniffles a little, his face half pressed to the mess of Iwaizumi’s hair, and it is an almost compulsive action on Iwaizumi’s part, to blindly set aside his mug and fist a hand in the back of Oikawa’s shirt.

      “I’m sorry,” Oikawa says, and his voice is muffled and thin, breaking on the last syllable. “Iwa-chan, I’m sorry.”

      Iwaizumi doesn’t have any words in him. There may be forgiveness at some point; it sits in his chest already, the desire to move past these last few years and reclaim the vestiges of old territory. If he has ever learned anything of love, it is that some wells may drain for a while, but they never completely dry.

      It won’t be right now though — perhaps not for a while.

      And Iwaizumi may know how to forgive, but forgetting is another beast altogether.

      Oikawa’s eyes are tinged red when they finally pull apart, and there is a careful smile on his lips as Iwaizumi thumbs away a tear. The moment crystalizes — freezes solid and still — then breaks. Oikawa moves away and retrieves a silver briefcase from beneath a loose floorboard, setting it carefully on the table. The PASIV is sleeker and lighter than the model Iwaizumi has grown familiar with; it doesn’t have the sealing mechanism that made adjusting somnacin doses impractical, nor the bulging transmitter fastened awkwardly to its side like an afterthought.

      Oikawa fusses with the packages of sterilized needles and tubing, and then spends minutes fiddling with the dials of the PASIV.

      “I’ll walk you through the maze,” Oikawa says eventually, when he can find no more excuses for delay, “and then we test run. When we do it for real, it’ll be quick and easy. Sawamura won’t ever know we were even there.”

      Iwaizumi lets Oikawa slip the needle into his vein, those clever fingers gentle in their deftness. Iwaizumi loves Oikawa’s hands — always has. They are strong and quick and they have held every piece of him worth holding. He feels the lingering touch of them now, on his wrist, as he slips away into the familiar sharpness of the dream.

      Eventually — six hours realtime and 24 hours of dreamtime later — Oikawa declares them sufficiently ready, and packs up the PASIV; storing it away under the floorboards once more.

      Iwaizumi puts his shoes on and walks back through the city to his hotel. He lies down next to his gun and pulls out the photograph he keeps tucked away over his heart. The little boy with the fluffy brown hair and dimples teeters out over the edge of a mountain. The boy’s hands anchor him to something that has long since been torn away and lost. Iwaizumi runs a finger over the picture’s jagged edge where the other half is missing, and then he carefully slips the photograph back into his breast pocket.

      By this time tomorrow, they will be breaking into Sawamura Daichi’s mind.

 

* * *

 

 **2019 - TOKYO**  

      “Yeah, no. I don't know.” Iwaizumi leans his elbows on the desk, letting his eyes drift unseeing over the computer screen in front of him. The cursor blinks over the final draft of his master thesis, as Iwaizumi listens to the familiar cadence of his mother’s voice filter through the phone he is holding to his ear.

      “I don't understand,” his mother says, her voice rising, “I thought you said you and Tooru-kun were coming home for New Years.”

      “I did,” Iwaizumi agrees, sighing, “but I don't really know anymore. Maybe we’ll just visit the temple here, push the whole thing another year.”

      “Hajime, are you getting cold feet? Is that what this is? I already bought the dried cuttlefish, and Tooru’s mother convinced Takeru he has to be there. Takeru has a girlfriend now, you know, he was planning on spending the evening out with her until we convinced him otherwise and —”

      “Mom, please,” Iwaizumi rubs at his forehead, feeling a headache building behind his eyes. His fingers flex around a small velvet box, — turning it over and over in his hand. “I just think maybe now isn't a good time after all. I mean, maybe I should get settled in a full time job first, put down some real roots somewhere.”

      “Darling,” his mother says, “Is this about the money? Because you know your father and I are ready to pay for the plane tickets. Tooru’s parent’s too, for that matter, if you asked. Not that you will ask, mind you, your father and I are more than ready to pay the civil hall fees and—”

      “It’s not the money. I promise. You know I’ve been saving. I just don’t think it’s a good time right now.” Heavy silence falls over the line and Iwaizumi blinks at the computer screen, feeling tense. There is a tightness in his gut — like a stone, dropped there to gather sediment — and it seems a harbinger of something worse to come. He tries not to think about it and almost succeeds.

      “Hajime, has Tooru done something?” his mother’s voice has turned tentative, like she has lost her footing in the conversation and now doesn’t know where to tread. Iwaizumi shakes his head, running his fingers over the box’s velvet surface in little agitated strokes.

      “No,” Iwaizumi says, and it is true. The _not yet_ is a silent echo ricocheting off the insides of his skull. “It’s just not the right time. There’s my thesis and Oikawa’s research and… and I’ll ask him to marry me when things have settled.”

      “Well, I’m sure you know best.” Iwaizumi’s mother doesn’t sound sure at all, she sounds like the world as gone askew, like she can’t quite reconcile this reality with the one she calls her own. Iwaizumi understands the feeling  — has been feeling it himself for days now — but he hums his assurance anyway. “There is still time to change your mind,” his mother says, “the two of you will work whatever this is out quick enough, I’m sure.”

      “Maybe,” Iwaizumi allows, before saying his goodbyes and then setting the velvet box down on the desk, directly in front of him. He stares at it; doesn’t want to open it, doesn’t want to hold it again, now that he has called off the small engagement ceremony his parents were planning for them — a tiny nod towards tradition in a country that doesn’t yet allow same-sex marriage.

      The rap of knuckles on the apartment door breaks Iwaizumi out of his stupor, and he wastes a few seconds staring blankly at his computer screen, watching the cursor blink lazily. The insistent knocking starts again, louder this time, bearing a weight of put-on authority.

      “Yeah, yeah,” Iwaizumi mutters and rubs at his eyes. He gets up and casts a defeated glance around the room before making for the door. He suspects the air will smell stuffy and thick to outside noses, and there is dirty laundry cluttering up the couch and floor in dismal heaps.

      Two large men stand outside the door wearing stiff grey suits with colourless ties and polished shoes. They eye Iwaizumi impassively when he cracks the door open, and perhaps it is Iwaizumi’s continuously darkening mood or perhaps it is the way these men’s presence seemingly looms in over the threshold, but Iwaizumi instantly has his hackles up.

      “Can I help you?” he snaps, overly rude and not opening the door anymore than a crack. Iwaizumi thinks he vaguely recognises these goons from somewhere, and he wonders who let them into the building.

      “We have business with Oikawa Tooru,” one of the men says, his voice an indifferent rumble. The man looks incredibly bored, as he stands there — or perhaps simply indifferent.

      “He isn’t here,” Iwaizumi says, “I don’t know where he is.” It is not entirely untrue; as far as Iwaizumi knows Oikawa could be anywhere in the city right now. “What do you want?”

      “It is a private matter,” the second man says, smooth and slick, a polite smile plastered across his face. “We can wait for him to come back.”

      “No, I don’t think you can,” Iwaizumi says, and tries to close the door only for one of the men to jam a foot into the crack.

      “No need to for that,” the slick one says, his hand gipping the door and wrenching it back open, “just let us inside, there’s no need for this to get ugly.”

      Iwaizumi isn’t a small man — he is a good bit taller than the national average, and though he isn’t the elite athlete of his high school years anymore, he has stayed in shape, and even packed on the muscle his eighteen year old self had only just started gaining. Even so, Iwaizumi knows he doesn’t stand much chance as he barricades the doorway with his body; these men are both larger and heavier than he is, built like wrestlers under their stiff, ill-fitting suits. He wishes he’d had the foresight to stash baseball bat by the front door, but it has never seemed very relevant until now.

      “You should leave,” Iwaizumi warns, threading menace into his voice. He doesn’t have the same gift for steamrolling as Oikawa does — he doesn’t know how to browbeat someone with words that cut to the bone and poison the wound — but he understands physical intimidation, and he knows how to lean just slightly forward, how to narrow his eyes and square his shoulders.

      “Hey now,” the slick one says, holding up a hand as if to placate, “We aren’t here for you.”

      “I don’t give a fuck—“

      Iwaizumi barely sees the man’s left hook come flying, but he manages to catch it with his forearm, and shove forward. A second fist connects with Iwaizumi’s jaw and he stumbles backwards into the apartment, giving ground. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance, but he isn’t about to just let these men come into his home — into his life — and collapse the teetering pillars upon which his world has been built.

      He keeps his elbows tucked to his chest, and his fists by his face, like you’re supposed to in a brawl. He averts a blow to his stomach and another to his head, — even manages to sock his fist into the slick goon’s eye — but then the other one is behind him, and he knows, even as he feels fingers grab his collar, that the next blow will land and land hard.

      The fist catches him in the temple and he crumbles to floor, conscious only long enough to feel the kick of a shoe connect with his ribs.

 

      Iwaizumi regains consciousness slowly. Everything around him spins, the world blurred and distorted. The afternoon light cuts sharply into his oversensitive eyes and he groans and rolls away from it only to gasp as pain overwhelms him, stealing the air from his lungs. Nausea takes over and he vomits, barely able to lift up onto his elbows and away from the mess. Dimly, he realizes he is concussed. That he should be calling for an ambulance.

      He doesn’t though, can’t. Instead he carefully rolls onto his back and tires to assess the damage. The pounding in his head makes it hard to identify where the rest of the pain is coming from, but he thinks some of his ribs must be broken by how breathing too deeply causes his vision to white out. He has no idea how long he lies there, just breathing shallowly and waiting for the spinning to stop, but eventually his mind clears enough for him to push himself up into a careful sitting position and then — using the edge of the dining table — he pulls himself to his feet.

      Around him, the small apartment he calls home has been razed. Books and nick-knacks have been torn from their shelves and the ratty second-hand couch lies on its side, cut open with its stuffing spilling out onto the floor. Posters and picture-frames lie shattered and ripped in the floor between chards of glass and broken chairs.

      Iwaizumi sways as he takes it all in, and almost faints — only his grip on the table keeping him steady.

      He should call Oikawa — call Tooru — make sure he is safe. Make sure Tooru knows there are people out there looking to hurt him. But Iwaizumi doesn’t know where his phone is — can’t find it among the wreckage. And the goons are gone now. Gone for now.

      Slowly, Iwaizumi makes his way to the refrigerator, ignoring the mess of food on the floor and instead digging through the things still left in the freezer until he comes up with a bag of frozen spinach.

      Gingerly, he holds the bag to his temple, sighing in relief. By his feet lies a photograph, torn from where it was once tagged to the fridge with magnets. Malicious hands have ripped it in two, and Iwaizumi feels numb as he crouches down to pick it up; the little boy with the brown hair and dimples hangs alone out over an abyss, eyes seeking upwards to the sky. The other half of the picture lies a few feet away, soaked in the puddle of a broken soy bottle; the little black haired boy erased by the swath of ink swimming together.

      A sob sticks in Iwaizumi’s throat, choked by the flash of agony as his chest contracts around it. Tears burn his cheeks on their way down. He sinks to the floor, his back against the kitchen cabinets. He has a clear view of the front door — hanging crooked and open on a single hinge, — but he doesn’t know who he wants to come through it — whether he wants anyone to step through it at all.

      Eventually, the tears dry and more coherent thoughts crawl in to replace shock. The stone in his gut has turned to cement, coating his insides in cold hardness, and he waits — feels the sand of an hourglass running out — and he knows everything will change now.

      It is dark outside when he hears the quick tap of Oikawa’s footsteps ascend the building’s stairs, the sound of them pause just down the hall, before then picking up again with renewed urgency — the slap of running feet against concrete.

      “Iwa-chan!” Oikawa appears in the doorway, wide-eyed, mouth open, his fingers dig into the splintered wood of the doorframe as he takes in the wreckage. “What—” He must spot Iwaizumi then, still sitting on the floor against the kitchen cabinets. The bag of spinach has long since thawed, but the throbbing behind Iwaizumi’s eyes has lessened enough that he thinks he doesn’t need it anyway.

      “Hajime!” Oikawa surges forward, almost tripping over something in his haste to kneel down in front of Iwaizumi. His hands come up to flutter helplessly over Iwaizumi’s shoulders as he rambles, his voice growing shrill, “Are you okay? What happened? Look at me; do you know where you are? Please be okay I—”

      “Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, surprised to find he has air enough for his voice to reach a normal volume. “Back off, I’m okay.”

      Oikawa shakes his head, a tad frantic, and his mouth works over a few unsaid words before he seems to find his voice again.

      “You aren’t okay, you’re bleeding, and— shit can you even breathe, why are you holding your side like that? Can you—” Oikawa tries to pry Iwaizumi’s arm from where he has been pressing it gingerly against his ribs.

      Iwaizumi hisses and grits his teeth, swatting Oikawa’s hands away, “Back off. I said I’m okay.” He isn’t, not really, but he is well enough for now — needs to be okay for this conversation. “Oikawa, there were two men here, looking for you.”

      “What?” Oikawa looks at him sharply, “What did they look like? Were they—“

      “I couldn’t place them at first, but they were the same guys I saw poking around your office a few weeks back,” Iwaizumi says, bitter, “What the fuck did you do?”

      “I haven’t done— Oh _shit!_ ” Oikawa lurches to his feet and disappears into their bedroom. Iwaizumi listens to the sounds of furniture being moved about — of something heavy being pushed over hardwood floor — and he licks his dry, cracked lips and already knows where all this is going.

      “They took it!” Oikawa stumbles out of their bedroom, wild-eyed and panting, “ _They took it all!_ Shit _._ They can’t just—“

      “Obviously they can,” Iwaizumi says and tries to fight off a wave of drowsiness. He thinks sleeping would probably be a really bad idea right now. “They took your PASIV?”

      “Everything, they took everything, — I had it all stashed here, all my research. Shit, I have to get to the labs, they can’t—“ Oikawa starts towards the door, his steps frantic.

      “Tooru,” Iwaizumi says, low and so tired, it stalls Oikawa in his tracks. Iwaizumi knows the moment when the reality of the situation clicks into place for Oikawa because the blood drains from Oikawa’s face and he stumbles back to kneel in front of Iwaizumi.

      “ _Shit_ ,” Oikawa whispers.

      “You already said that. Come on, help me up.” Iwaizumi holds out his hand, and Oikawa gingerly pulls him up, wincing in sympathy as Iwaizumi groans in pain. “Okay, I'm okay,” Iwaizumi pants once he is sure he isn’t going to faint and shrugs off Oikawa’s hands, waving them away and then picks his way across the room. The desk where he had been working just a few hours ago has been turned over, scattering office supplies and paperwork and drafts of Iwaizumi’s thesis out unto the floor. The little velvet box is nowhere to be seen. Iwaizumi thinks it just as well.

      “I can’t believe they came here,” Oikawa says, his voice uneven as he keeps his eyes trained on Iwaizumi, “This shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t think they would actually come here.”

      Iwaizumi grunts, shaking his head and then regretting it. “Who are these people Oikawa? Yakuza? Because I swear if you—“

      “No! No,” Oikawa holds up his hands, “They aren’t. I don’t know who they are exactly but I’ve run everything through official channels, even if there are links to the underworld they have nothing on me—“

      “Except for how you’ve been keeping home-compounded hallucinogens _in our apartment_ ,” Iwaizumi points out, callous in the face of it all. “And I’ve been _letting_ you, because I trusted you to actually know what you were doing. Or did you also forget Japan has a no-tolerance drug policy?”

      “It’s not that bad,” Oikawa says, “I know this looks bad, but I can sort it out. They can’t actually do this — they can’t just break in and _take_ my research. We should report this, and then I’ll press charges and— Oh fuck I can’t believe they _hurt you_ I—“

      “Oikawa stop,”

      “Our insurance will cover most of the damage, it’s not like—“

      “Stop, _STOP,”_ Iwaizumi cuts the air with his hand, silencing Oikawa, “Tooru, look around you. It’s time to stop.”

      Oikawa blinks at Iwaizumi, taken aback. Giving up has never been in Oikawa’s vocabulary, not even after words likes _defeat_ and _impossible and knee-surgery_ came into his life and settled there like haughty, insurmountable giants. It is part of what made Oikawa such a great athlete back in high school — part of what Iwaizumi loves about him. Iwaizumi is different though — he knows what surrender feels like.

      “Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, tentative again, unsure. “I know this seems bad, but—“

      “Please would you stop saying that?” Iwaizumi tires to breathe through the throbbing of his ribs as his vision swims.

      “This technology is ground-breaking; it has the potential to help so many people, you understand that right? I have to see this through.”

      “Am I alone in here?” Iwaizumi wonders aloud, hysteria building, “Are you even listening? What exactly do you think it is we’ve been doing here for the last four years? Because I’ve been building my life around you — all my life I’ve built my world around you.”

      “I never—“

      “University in Tokyo, the loan I took so we could live here, this fucking masters degree, and the— I was going to ask you to marry me, and—

      “I didn’t ask you to—”

      “You didn’t fucking tell me not to, Oikawa!”

      Silence fits itself into the spaces between Iwaizumi’s quick, shallow breathing, and he feels tired — so tired — and drained for words.

      “That’s not fair,” Oikawa says quietly. He has gone pale in the face of Iwaizumi’s anger — his eyes shining blankly with unshed tears. “You know I love you. You _know_. But you can’t just ask me to throw all this away. This research… this is my life.”

      Iwaizumi nods, running a hand over his mouth and reaching backwards to steady himself against a bookshelf — the one where they keep their shared manga collection and the entire Dune series, and all the volleyball trophies they ever won together. The shelves now gape empty, the content strewn out and ruined on the floor.

      “You’re right,” Iwaizumi says, his voice hoarse. He feels the foundations of his world crumble. “It is your life. But I can’t be part of this.”

      “Don’t say that,” Oikawa snaps, “That is not how we do things!” There is anger in Oikawa’s voice now — indignation — because no matter how much they fight, they don’t ever threaten to leave. It is not how they do things.

      “I can’t keep putting you first when I’m the last thing on your list.”

      “Iwa-chan, that’s not _true_.”

      “Look around you, Tooru,” Iwaizumi gestures to the apartment, to the torn drapes, the scattered books, the broken chairs. “ _This_ was my life. This right here. With you. I’ve been trusting you with it, and you just— you _ruined_ it.” He is still holding that piece of torn photograph in his hand, and he can’t quite seem to let it go.

      Oikawa’s mouth opens and closes, working around words that never fully form. His nose is scrunched up in that way that means he is fighting back tears — his face red with the effort of it.

      “I need to see a doctor,” Iwaizumi says, abruptly realizing he has to get out of there and fast.

      “Right, yeah,” Oikawa says hoarsely, his voice cracking. He blinks rapidly, and then presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, “Yes, we can talk about this later. We’ll just—”

      “No, I think it’s best I go alone.” Panic swells inside Iwaizumi, hot and thick. He glances around the wasteland of his life and can’t — in that moment — think of a single thing he wants to bring with him. It is everything or nothing; he doesn’t know how to live with only pieces.

      “You’re not in any condition to—“

      “I’m fine to walk,” Iwaizumi says, short, “We’ll talk later.”

      He can feel Oikawa’s eyes on him as he walks out the door, keeping his back straight and his strides long. It is first when he reaches the train station and the automatic doors slide shut behind him, that his feet stutter, and his shoulders start to shake. He knows he is making a spectacle of himself, standing in the train, bloody and bruised and crying his eyes out. People give him a wide berth, and he doesn’t blame them.

      A nurse at the hospital wraps up his ribs and treats the cuts on his face. A doctor tells him they want to keep him overnight for observation because of the concussion. They both worry about shock. Iwaizumi doesn’t stay though; he checks himself out and buys a ticket home to Miyagi with the change in his pocket. He is halfway home when he realizes he doesn’t want to be there either.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Part Two — You cut me down

 

 

 

  **2019 — JAPAN**

      Joining the military is not what you’d call an informed decision on Iwaizumi’s part, but it was  _a_ decision, and Iwaizumi is desperate to keep himself from apathy. Besides, where else was he going to go? Home had always been wherever Oikawa was, and so home would not ever be an option again.

      Iwaizumi Hajime meets Kuroo Tetsuro for the first time during his second month of basic training. Kuroo has been in the service for a while — he has stripes on his shoulders and has flown jets on UN missions. He is tall, loud, and takes perverse pleasure in verbally jabbing at people until they snap. He refuses to cut his wild, black hair to regulation length and nobody gives him shit for it. He smokes like a steam engine and lectures the recruits on how every cigarette makes it harder to breathe when you’re sitting in a cockpit at 15.000 meters and 6Gs are pressing down on you.

      Perhaps it is because Iwaizumi is older than the other recruits by a few years, or perhaps it is simply because of his forbidding frown, but Kuroo singles Iwaizumi out on the first day and makes it his personal mission to draw him out of his shell.

      “Bro you don’t smile enough,” Kuroo says one night, after they sneak out of the compound to hustle snooker in the bowls of a greasy dive bar. There is no particular judgment in Kuroo’s voice — just slow consideration, as if this observation means something to the long con that is unmistakably Kuroo’s life. “For a while I thought you couldn’t smile, but you can. That thing you’re doing right there is adorable — Oh hey no, don’t stop on my account.” Kuroo waves his cue as Iwaizumi throws a fierce scowl at him. “I’m just saying, you know, I always did figure someone fucked you over bad for you to drop your comfortable degree and the 2.5 children to join the force.”

      “I’ve always liked aircrafts,” Iwaizumi bites out and takes aim at the cue ball. He misses his shot by a wide margin. Kuroo arches a condescending eyebrow.

      “Sure,” Kuroo agrees, “And I’ve always liked the circus, but that doesn’t mean I’ll uproot and run away to learn the trapeze.” He studies Iwaizumi and fiddles with the chalk, “Maybe not the 2.5 children though, right?” he says after a pause and blows the excess blue powder from his cue tip. He turns to regard the table, “A man broke your heart. Your life is a regular Taylor swift song isn’t it?”

      “Lay off,” Iwaizumi warns, his hackles up and bristling. He has a short fuse these days — he snaps and grunts and almost punched out a guy from his own unit when a particularly homophobic slur was voiced a tad too close to Iwaizumi’s vicinity. Iwaizumi wonders if it says something about him that he only allows prying assholes this close to the truth of him.

      “Peace Bro. Didn’t mean anything by it,” Kuroo shrugs, uncaring. He lines up his shot and sends the ball sailing perfectly controlled and smooth into the furthermost pocket. The cigarette between Kuroo’s teeth has burned down almost to the filter, and it glows red in the dim light of the bar. “I just wanted to give you a word of advice. See, they’re reassigning me somewhere soon, — fuck if I know where — so this might be my last chance to impart any hard-won wisdom on your impressionable mind.”

      “You’re so full of shit,” Iwaizumi tells him and stares sadly into his mostly empty beer. The base will be a dull place once Kuroo is gone.

      “We’re all addicts at heart,” Kuroo says seriously, leaning on his cue stick and regarding Iwaizumi with uncharacteristic solemnity. “Most of the time we get addicted to things without even noticing. Work, sex, adrenaline… people… cigarettes.” Kuroo holds out the smouldering remains of his smoke before dropping it on the floor and distinguishing it with the heel of his boot. It leaves a dark smear on the floor. “Pick your poison man, that’s my advice. Pick one and stick with it, and if it turns out it isn’t good enough, then pick a new one, but kick the first.”

      “Is that what you do?” Iwaizumi asks, sceptical. He scoffs when Kuroo shrugs.

      “Maybe. That’s not the point though. Pining for just one more fix won’t ever do anyone any good, if you get me. So pick something else — or someone else — and forget whoever screwed you over in the first place.”

      “Easier said than done,” Iwaizumi murmurs, feeling angry and sad and betrayed. He doesn’t picture it though, the things he thought he’d have but now won’t. He isn’t drunk enough for that. Kuroo doesn’t know what he’s talking about anyway, Iwaizumi thinks. There is no kicking this particular addiction, only stoic perseverance and prolonged denial.

      “Hey, no one ever said anything about easy,” Kuroo says almost gently — as gently perhaps, as he is a capable of — and then pulls out his pack of smokes and drops the entirety of it into a full pint of beer. “It’s hard alright,” he says, and pats Iwaizumi’s shoulder.

      A week later, Kuroo is reassigned and the base feels emptier in his absence.

      Almost a full year passes before Iwaizumi sees Kuroo Tetsuro again, in the bowls of a Ukrainian military base. The wiry Japanese man with the mischievous smirk and the ridiculous hair lies prone on a narrow cot, a needle in his arm and a thin tube connecting him to a PASIV. He lies there, still except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, and for a second Iwaizumi sees a different body lying in Kuroo’s place — fragile and vulnerable in sleep, lost somewhere in his own head.

      Kuroo wakes as the PASIV beeps, — its timer dialling down to zero. He looks haggard and disoriented as he climbs from the cot, arching an eyebrow at Iwaizumi’s presence but not offering comment. When Kuroo’s fingers dive into a pocket and come up with a smoke, he doesn’t light it.

 

* * *

 

 

**2023 — COPENHAGEN**

      The night is crisp and clear as Iwaizumi makes his way to their agreed meeting place with two minutes to spare. The last rays of pink and orange has long receded from the distant horizon but the sky remains stubbornly azure, as if refusing to completely relinquish the notion of daylight.

      Oikawa is sitting on a bench just skirting the deep shadow of an oak — a tiny stretch of grass between two buildings allowing just enough room for its winding boughs. He is dressed casually in a grey shirt and jacket. A large hard-shell suitcase stands by his feet, black and hiding a sliver machine worth more than Iwaizumi was ever willing to pay.

      Oikawa stands as Iwaizumi draws near, the silhouette of him unwinding in familiar motions — the slight roll of a shoulder, the graceful straightening of his spine, the careful shift of weight onto an imperfectly healed knee.

      “Hey,” Oikawa’s voice is light, pitched with and undercurrent of fragility. Yesterday loosened something between them, opened up for— for hope maybe. Iwaizumi doesn’t know.

      He knows that tonight will be hard. He knows that he already hates himself for being part of this.

      “Hey,” Iwaizumi says, and smiles gently at Oikawa, because he had once believed the shape and taste and sight of love was hidden in the private curl Oikawa’s softest smile. Iwaizumi still thinks this might be true. “Did you, uh...” Iwaizumi clears his throat, “did you remember everything?”

      “Yeah, I…” Oikawa looks away towards the road for a long beat and when he looks back, some of the fragility has receded. “I checked everything twice.”

      “Good,” Iwaizumi says, strangely relieved by the shift. The taxi pulls up right on time.

      “Here we go then,” Oikawa mutters, and goes to greet the taxi driver with an exaggeratedly tired smile.

      The taxi takes them to Sawamura’s hotel — a swanky black slate building named Hotel Imperial with a wide lounge and a polished reception desk. A blond man in his mid-twenties looks up from behind the reception desk as they step in.

      “We have a room booked for two nights,” Oikawa says in his smooth unbroken English, leaning an elbow on the high desk and letting a sly smile stretch the line if his mouth, “Under the name Suzuki.”

      The receptionist blinks twice before glancing down at the computer screen, a flush spreading over his cheeks. “Right, yes of course. Um, two queens?”

      “You bet,” Oikawa drawls, and  _winks._  Something ugly twists in Iwaizumi’s gut, and he abruptly decides to intervene before Oikawa blows this whole operation by leaving DNA on this guy’s bed sheets. It is not an entirely rational thought, but it powers Iwaizumi as he grabs Oikawa by the collar and hauls him away from the desk.

      “One room, two beds, fifth floor please.” Iwaizumi slaps the two fake passports onto the counter and fixes the receptionist with a glare. “I can’t sleep if there are people walking around above me, that won’t be any trouble will it?”

      “No sir,” the man practically squeaks, “No problem at all.” Iwaizumi thinks he hears Oikawa snicker behind him. “Will you need help carrying your luggage up?”

      “Oh I think my friend here will manage just fine,” Oikawa chirps, and pats Iwaizumi’s biceps, “he’s big where it counts.” Iwaizumi almost tears through the paper as he signs for the room.

      The receptionist looks torn between amusement and terror as Iwaizumi grabs the key-cards and almost physically pushes Oikawa towards the elevators. “Have a pleasant stay,” the receptionist belatedly calls after them, and then the elevator doors slide shut.

      “You have got to be kidding me,” Iwaizumi snaps, as Oikawa cracks up in laughter. “What the fuck Oikawa.”

      “You—“ Oikawa clutches at his stomach and wheezes for air, “You should have seen your face.”

      “What happened to not drawing attention? That guy is going to remember your ugly mug for months.”

      “I was just being friendly, Iwa-chan. You were the one who went and scared the poor guy.” Oikawa chuckles, and then breaks into another peal of laughter when Iwaizumi scowls at him.

      “That stunt you just pulled might land us in jail. You do realize, most people usually remember when they get hit on.”

       “Hm, do they?” Oikawa smirks as the elevator slows and the doors ping open on the fifth floor. “Because I’m pretty sure it took you six years to pick up on how I was blatantly flirting with you.” He pats Iwaizumi's shoulder and strides out of the lift, leaving Iwaizumi to wheel the suitcase along behind him.

      It is not the first time one of them has broached the subject of, well,  _them —_ the two of them together — since they reunited here in Copenhagen. How could it be? With all the shared history dangling between them, sucking in all the air in the room — impossible to ignore but still carefully navigated around or referenced at without any specificity. Oikawa had said  _sorry,_ and Iwaizumi doesn't doubt he meant it, but it had been a fragile moment — the pieces of a broken masterpiece being gently pushed together to see if they still fit.

      This, on the other hand is casual, careless  — this is Oikawa throwing words just to see if they hit. It makes Iwaizumi’s insides clench, makes him go quiet. He doesn't like being pushed. He doesn't like the way his stomach drops and turns, not much different from the moment just before a dream collapses. And Iwaizumi knows, you see, that it can be hard to tell an illusion from reality, and he thinks this easy banter Oikawa is trying to re-establish between them would be no more than that — an illusion created by circumstance and need, not forgiveness.

      “Let's get this over with,” Iwaizumi mutters, resentful despite himself as he follows Oikawa into the hotel room conveniently situated just above Sawamura’s.

      The decor is ostentatious and luxurious, if dated by at least 40 years. The wood panelling and heavy drapes contrasts with the minimalist furniture, and Iwaizumi finds himself staring at a zebra patterned bedspread, wondering what exactly Sawamura Daichi was thinking when he chose this hotel for a business trip.

      Oikawa’s mouth has smoothed out into a flat line — taut with tension — and he grimaces as he takes in the room. Iwaizumi knows Oikawa would have found the decor hilarious under other circumstances, but now he just squares his shoulders and frowns at his watch. “Okay,” he says, and sighs, “let's get this over with.”

      They don’t speak as Oikawa opens up the suitcase, carefully lifting out the aluminium briefcase containing the PASIV, and then tugging out the harnesses and ropes packed beneath it.

      Iwaizumi pulls on the cotton gloves and starts rigging up the harnesses before going to inspect the windows. The building is old enough that they open up to a degree, just as the preliminary research had promised, and the locks and hinges are old and accessible. It takes Iwaizumi only a few minutes with a screwdriver to successfully open the window wide enough for a man to slip through.

      “Right,” Oikawa says as he comes over to inspect Iwaizumi’s work, “You didn’t damage the frame did you?”

      Iwaizumi arches an eyebrow. “I barely scraped the paint. It’s time right? Sawamura should be going down to the lobby for dinner about now.”

      Oikawa hums in agreement, letting his eyes drift out the open window and out across the busy streets of Copenhagen. An old amusement park peaks out of an oasis of well-aged trees and steel constructions only a few hundred feet away, the spires visible over rooftops and lit by warm fairy lights. It is beautiful the way something so trivial fits into the very heart of a city, like a well-loved toy still spreading warmth and joy even after you’ve outgrown it. Iwaizumi used to think their relationship was like that too; always best friends at heart regardless of what else they grew into.

      Sometimes, when even the cold, dreamless sleep eludes him, Iwaizumi wonders if he is the one to blame for everything; if maybe they had stayed just friends, everything would have been okay.

      “Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says and then sucks in a breath, exhaling slowly as he keeps his eyes on the city outside. “If you want me to do this part, that’s only fair, okay? The chance of Sawamura recognizing me from the news is pretty small — I mean he hasn’t been in Japan for almost a month and other stuff have been taking up most of the news slots anyway and—“

      “Oikawa, it’s not a problem,” Iwaizumi interrupts, holding up a hand to stem the tide of Oikawa’s nervous rambling.

      Oikawa shakes his head and worries his lip. His hands fidget with the lapels of his suit. “No,” he says, ”I know you aren’t comfortable with any parts of this plan. Your moral compass has always pointed truer than mine and I’m saying I can do this part at least. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this.”

      Oikawa has always been efficient at affecting sincerity, but if there were lies between them it was only ever the ones Iwaizumi chose to believe. There is no lie now, only the fragile knowledge that Oikawa can’t go downstairs and face Sawamura outside of the dream.

      “We don’t have time for this Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, gruff in his gentleness — his earlier bout of anger subsided and replaced by a quiet, reluctant fondness he has always associated with his best friend. He doesn’t know how to explain to Oikawa that drugging another human being will be the least of his sins.

      He appreciates, at least, that Oikawa knows he is asking too much.

      “I have to do it. This whole plan falls apart if Sawamura can connect his dream to reality afterwards. We both know it.”

      Iwaizumi slips off the gloves and straightens his plain suit jacket, feeling the press and tug of his gun holster against his sides. “Now, do I look like a really bored businessman or what?”

      “Sure,” Oikawa says, half a smile tugging at his lips but not reaching his eyes. “I’ll be covering you.”

      Iwaizumi nods and then leaves Oikawa behind in the hotel room, feeling his nerves racket up as he takes the elevator back down alone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

      Sawamura Daichi sits alone in the hotel’s restaurant, a glass of wine half empty in front of him and a book lying open on the table next to the remains of a meal. The restaurant is much like the hotel room — overly swanky and purposely out-dated in a fashion that could have been considered retro but is almost depressingly original. Small, private tables are arranged around a closed, grand piano, and people sit in twos and fours, murmuring their quiet conversations in dim lighting.

      Iwaizumi makes his way through the restaurant, ignoring the slightly startled headwaiter and instead heading straight for the bar. His route takes him past Sawamura’s table, and he lets his foot catch on the leg of a chair so that he stumbles, and his arms flail in over the table for balance.

      A small pill dissolves almost instantly in Sawamura’s wine.

      “So sorry,” Iwaizumi mutters, straightening. He doesn’t meet Sawamura’s eye as he steadies himself and continues on his way towards the bar. He asks the bartender for a soda just to order something, and then takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he watches his hands shake just a little — just enough to prove he is less callous than the thought.

      “Excuse me?”

      A hand touches Iwaizumi’s shoulder briefly, and he turns — startled — to look into the affable face of Sawamura Daichi. A flash flood of heat jams Iwaizumi’s system as panic kicks in. He only barely manages to contain his flinch.

      “I think you tore a button off when you tripped earlier,” Sawamura says and holds out the button in question.

      “Oh um,” Iwaizumi glances down to where a thread hangs loose from his open jacket. “Thank you.” Sawamura’s eyes crinkle with a smile, the beginnings of crows’ feet gentling his features.

      “Would you mind if I joined you for a dink?”

      Iwaizumi’s eyes dart to Sawamura’s abandoned table — to the empty glass of wine a waiter is about to clear away. “Not at all,” Iwaizumi says, his reply just a beat too slow and a tad too strained as he tries to hide his relief. If Sawamura notices, he doesn’t let on.

      “I’m Sawamura Daichi.” Sawamura holds out his hand for Iwaizumi to shake, and Iwaizumi barely remembers to give his fake name instead of his own. Oikawa would have been good at this, he thinks, good at looking someone in the eye and speaking blatant lies. “What brings you to Denmark?” Sawamura asks, after he has flagged down the bartender and ordered two fingers of whiskey on the rocks.

      “Just a two day layover,” Iwaizumi says, and tries to smile. Tries to seem polite and reserved so that the other man will take the hint and leave.

      “What a shame,” Sawamura says, still smiling, “It’s a lovely country, even if the people here are a little private.”

      “Private,” Iwaizumi repeats, “Sounds like another word for rude.”

      “Maybe,” Sawamura admits and shrugs, “I got married here, so I suppose I’m biased. Did you know this country has incredibly uncomplicated marriage laws for international couples?”

      Iwaizumi’s stomach drops — he doesn’t want to talk about this. “I know,” he says, short, and stares down at the bar, fiddling with his too-expensive soda and feeling the press of a ruined photograph against his skin.

      Sawamura hums, thoughtful. “This country was the first to legalize same-sex partnerships as well, you know? Almost thirty years ago now.” Sawamura runs a thumb over the gold band shining on his finger — a distracted gesture — and he smiles, soft. Iwaizumi nods and feels like this conversation is a train with too much momentum and no emergency brakes. He just wants to get off.

      “Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, hoarse, “I know.”

      Sawamura just nods and smiles, and then pulls out a card from his inner pocket. “My partner is running a petition for the EMA right now. The Equal Marriage Alliance.” He places the card on the bar in front of Iwaizumi, all sharp corners and expensive cardstock and thick, clear lettering promoting a Japanese website. “You should sign,” Sawamura says and taps his ring again, the gold shining and well worn. Well-loved. “One day back home, right? We’ll get there too.”

      Iwaizumi doesn’t have any words. He feels the burn of old tears in his throat and thinks of how bad he wants to sign this petition and how he can’t, and of how he’ll be invading this man’s mind soon, heartless and ungrateful and seeking secrets he doesn’t even want.

      Sawamura isn’t a good man — the drossier Oikawa so carefully compiled proves this. But Iwaizumi raises his glass in respect anyway, because he knows whatever crimes Sawamura has committed — however power-hungry and deceitful his work — even bad men do good things sometimes. Iwaizumi likes to think the opposite is true as well.

      Sawamura’s eyes crinkle in a smile, and then he yawns, wide and loud. Iwaizumi glances at his wristwatch and knows this will be the drugs kicking in and fast. “It’s getting late,” he prompts even though it isn’t, and Sawamura nods, already looking a little woozy and leaving too much money on the counter to pay for his drink.

      “Good talk,” Samamura says, “It’s been a long day though, if you don’t mind...”

      Iwaizumi waves him off, perhaps too eagerly, but it doesn’t matter. Sawamura leaves in a daze, and Iwaizumi sits there, counting the beats of his heart and wishing the awful clenching of his gut will stop so he can pretend Oikawa wasn’t right after all. He feels raw, like all his old wounds have been cut open and he is sitting in that kitchen again, bleeding and broken.

      He should have let Oikawa do this part, but it’s too late now. ~~~~

* * *

 

 

**2020 — UKRAINE**

      Kuroo takes to carrying a gun around the base. Iwaizumi isn’t exactly sure how Kuroo manages to fly it by their commanding officers, but there is a grim defiance in Kuroo these days — a quiet rage masked thinly by a veil of apathy. Kuroo chews on stubbed pencils and toothpicks; his hands fiddling with the strap of his gun holster.

      Iwaizumi double-checks the somnacin dosage before they go under every time, without exception — he asks about the anaesthetic components and keeps asking until they tell him. He does not trust the chemist. He does not trust the nurses or the doctors or his commanding officers. When they go under, it is into worlds of dry sand and rocks, where the ground beneath their feet is unreliable and the enemy wears faces Iwaizumi swears he knows, but can’t quite place.

      Iwaizumi has been lost in a dusty stretch of mountain for what feels like eighteen hours the first time he kills a projection. He is hungry and thirsty and dirt coats his sweaty skin in a layer of grime that itches and chaffs. The projection wears the face of a girl he thinks he vaguely remembers from the local convenience store back home, and Iwaizumi must have accidentally changed something in the dream — must have pushed at the fragile sense of normality which keeps a dream stable — because she attacks him from behind with a kitchen knife, screaming as she lounges, her voice shrill.

      Iwaizumi spins and catches her wrist, spurred on by pure instinct and adrenaline as he uses his momentum to  _push_  and—

      And then there is blood on his uniform, and the girl stumbles back, knife buried in her chest. He does not stay to see her fall. He stumbles away and vomits bile — claws at his chest until his fingers touch the smooth paper of a photograph and he pulls it out, whole and unblemished.

      Two boys balance on the very tip of a mountain.

      Dreaming. He is dreaming.

      Kuroo is there, once the dream has run its course. Once the somnacin has run dry and the blurred edges of reality turn sharp. He sits with his gun in his hands and an unlit cigarette going limp between his teeth.

      Iwaizumi thinks Kuroo must know what happened somehow — that he must sense it — because Kuroo digs out a bottle of hard liquor that night and makes Iwaizumi drink half.

      It becomes routine after a while; the training drills, the shooting at almost recognizable faces like a videogame level replayed too many times. Except for how real it feels, that is. All the pain centres are in the brain, after all. It always feels too real.

      Iwaizumi learns what getting shot feels like — he learns the white-hot blast of a mine under his feet and the slow, burning suffocation of a roof collapsing on him.

      He learns how to put a bullet in his fellow soldiers as soon as they take a wound. He learns how to point the gun under his own chin and pull the trigger. He learns the fear never goes away.

 

* * *

 

**2023 — COPENHAGEN**

      Oikawa’s fingers snag the lapels of Iwaizumi’s jacket and yank him into the confines of their rented hotel room. The door shuts behind them, and Iwaizumi stumbles as he is pushed back against the door by Oikawa’s solid weight. “You idiot,” Oikawa hisses, the harshness of his voice swallowed by the wildness of his eyes as he pushes forward, knuckles digging into the skin of Iwaizumi’s throat. “What were you doing, talking to Sawamura? You idiot.”

      “Oikawa, what the fuck.” Iwaizumi tugs at Oikawa hands, forcibly pulling them down to rest against his heart with a grip verging on too tight. There is a dissonance between Oikawa’s panic and reality, Iwaizumi thinks. A glitch somewhere. “It’s fine. It’s  _fine._ ”

      “It’s not fine. It’s not.” Oikawa is leaning in, so close his knees are knocking against Iwaizumi’s. “He’ll remember your face now — I shouldn’t have made you do this, what was I  _thinking._ You look so _—_ ”

      Oikawa is too close, closer than they have been since—

      “Oikawa, back off,” Iwaizumi chokes out, releasing Oikawa’s hands and shoves. “Back  _off_.”

      Oikawa rocks back just an inch before he freezes, his eyes locked on Iwaizumi’s. For the duration of a heartbeat the air itself feels like shattered glass, barbed and fragile and razor sharp. Iwaizumi can’t begin to guess what Oikawa sees playing across his face, but he feels raw, cut open and bleeding.

      Now really isn’t the time for this.

      Oikawa sucks in a sharp breath. He steps back, and with that step the panic falls away, too, replaced by the ghost of a familiar determination and fractures of a hardened composure. Back in high school Oikawa never lost his cool in a volleyball match — not even when the odds were stacked against them, not when they were one drooped volley from losing their chance at nationals. He shouldn’t fall apart now, either. Iwaizumi won’t have it. He  _needs_ Oikawa to keep himself together on his own.

      “We’ll be in and out. Sawamura won’t even remember the theft. That was the plan. It won’t matter whether he remembers my face or not.” Iwaizumi reminds him, forcing conviction into his voice even though he knows —  _knows_  —Oikawa’s carefully crafted plan is just a theory at best. He holds Oikawa’s gaze like this simple act will make them both believe it.

      Oikawa turns away abruptly — turning his back — and he drags a hand through his hair, nails digging in and leaving the carefully sculptured hair in disarray. Iwaizumi could once have written a dissertation on the lines and scope of Oikawa’s back — on the way the raw strength of Oikawa’s core lends him confidence but fails to disguise the uncertainties running counterpoint in the slight hunch of his shoulders. It has been years since then though, and Iwaizumi finds himself studying Oikawa now, finding him both familiar and alien as Oikawa slowly straightens fully, like a puppet being propped up on supports until you can almost —  _almost_  — believe it is standing on its own.

      Oikawa walks stiffly to the window where the rope now hangs ready, anchored to the old iron-wrought heater, and he carefully secures his harness and the PASIV.

      “Sawamura will be asleep by now,” Oikawa murmurs, and if his voice is hoarse and thick then these nuances are lost to the small creak of hinges as he pushes the window open.

      There are no more words after that.

      The rope feels too thin between Iwaizumi’s fingers as he slowly climbs down the building’s side. He is careful not to place his feet on glass as he slips a paper-thin knife beneath the window’s latch, wrenching it open from the outside.

      Sawamura is a dark shape lying prone across the king-sized bed, still fully dressed down to his shoes. Oikawa makes a soft noise when he slips through the window, like maybe he hadn’t been prepared for the reality of what they are about to do — what they have already done by drugging Sawamura.

      It takes Iwaizumi pressing a hand to Oikawa shoulder — firmly, almost a push — before Oikawa jerks into motion, unclipping the PASIV and opening it up with careful, steady hands and unfurling the coils of tubing. Iwaizumi doesn’t wait for Oikawa to approach Sawamura — does it himself — because the PASIV may be Oikawa’s invention and the somnacin induced dreams may have been Oikawa’s playground for longer than anyone else’s, but there is an lingering innocence to the way Oikawa handles the PASIV’s metal casing; in the way he checks the dosages one last time. Iwaizumi won’t taint that if he can help it.

      Sawamura’s mouth is slack against the bedding, drool pooling on the pillow as his eyes move rapidly beneath closed eyelids. He doesn’t stir as Iwaizumi punctures the skin of his wrist with a needle, just keeps breathing, quiet and steady.

      Iwaizumi averts his eyes and moves away, settling on the carpeted floor next to the PASIV. The last thing he knows before somnacin hits his bloodstream is the warmth of Oikawa lying down beside him and a pair of familiar, searching brown eyes, seeing all too much.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**DREAMING**

      Walking a dream Oikawa has constructed is different to what Iwaizumi grew used to during his time in the military. Oikawa’s maze-theory, when implemented, makes for disorientating level layouts while still lending a sense of tightly contained and controlled dreamscape. There are no unmapped areas, no edges of the dream you can fall off, no doors leading to nothing. In the experienced hands of Oikawa, the dream is no longer a just slightly off version of reality, but an elaborate masterpiece of well-hidden paradoxes. But it is more than that; Oikawa’s dreams  _feel_ different — more solid and stable for one — but also truer. Or perhaps it is that they feel more true to  _Iwaizumi_  specially, everything in them familiar in a deep-seated almost primal sort of way.

      One narrow Tokyo-esque street merges into the next, post-war buildings clamouring for space with increasing desperation on each side of the road.

      Iwaizumi twists to fumble for the gun tucked away under his seat. Oikawa squints out at the city, driving the small town car around a series of corners in a pattern they’ve practiced on previous runs of this dream. They take a sharp left by a bakery and another slow right by a minimart — both the storefronts identical to ones Iwaizumi recognizes from back home on Miyagi. Guideposts, Oikawa had called them when Iwaizumi had first asked.

      They are in Sawamura’s dream by necessity, and as such most of the dream’s architecture and décor has been supplied by Sawamura’s subconscious. The bones of the dream is Oikawa’s though, and they follows the familiar markers into a high-end shopping district with office buildings rising up into polished, glassy points, high above. Iwaizumi runs his hands over his gun, switching off the safety and then switching it on again, checking the trigger and the bullets in the chamber. Oikawa glances at it nervously, but doesn’t comment, just tightens his grip on the steering wheel as they pull up outside an office building.

      Up ahead, Sawamura Daichii steps out of a taxi, dressed in a steel-grey suit and carrying a briefcase. They watch him throw a friendly wave and a smile at the cabbie before disappearing into the building.

      “You ready for this? We’ve got two hours to pull this off,” Oikawa says, and his eyes are sharp again as they cut to Iwaizumi. Whatever apprehensions Oikawa might have had out in the real world are gone, replaced instead by a feverish determination Iwaizumi recognizes. Responds to, instinctively.

      “Yeah,” Iwaizumi lies, feeling grim as he shoves the gun beneath his waistband and climbs out of the car. Oikawa is right behind him, emerging dressed immaculately in a pinstriped three-piece suit and looking every bit the successful businessman he was never going to be. It makes Iwaizumi roll his eyes and tug at his own suit as they stroll into the building after Sawamura.

      Their plan is simple on paper: Oikawa will corner Sawamura and engage him in a dialogue about oil-stocks. Then, when Sawamura is feeling sufficiently pressed, Iwaizumi will go to the office Oikawa has carefully reconstructed as a replica of Sawamura’s real-life work space, and break into the strongbox hidden in Sawamura's bookcase.

      In practice however, the plan is less straightforward. It is crucial to get Sawamura thinking intently on the date of the pump-and-dump or the strongbox might be empty or contain some other, less relevant, secret. Meanwhile, by antagonizing Sawamura, they will undoubtedly be turning Sawamura’s projections hostile and possibly even collapse the dream altogether.

      Iwaizumi feels the press of his gun against the small of his back, and he knows — knows with certainty — that if he were to pull out the photograph still pressed against his heart, it would be whole and untarnished. He isn’t ready, but he thinks he is as ready for this as he ever will be.

 

* * *

 

 

**2021 — UKRAINE**

      It is supposed to be a quick mission; an initial scouting into a known terrorist’s mind, just to gauge the target’s level of innate paranoia. The dreamscape unfolds as a densely forested mountainside — designed specifically by their architect to avoid an overpopulation of projections. Iwaizumi and Kuroo lose sight of both the mark and their guide almost from the get-go when they are forced to skirt a group of armed projections camping right by their planned route.

      The forest leads Iwaizumi and Kuroo around in what can only be called mindless circles; the dreamscape layout replicating itself in segments until Iwaizumi is ready to throttle Kuroo for stepping on the same damn twig for the fifth time. The mountain air is cold enough to nip at Iwaizumi’s cheeks, but it smells clean, like Miyagi in the fall, dense with wet foliage. It sets him further on edge, latent homesickness rearing its head. Iwaizumi is so caught up in fuming he barely registers the change in their surroundings until Kuroo abruptly motions for a halt.

      “What’s this?” Kuroo asks, looking around with a frown. The trees have cleared and instead of forest, they find themselves suddenly standing on a street in front of a house.

      Iwaizumi’s blood runs cold as he stares up at Oikawa’s childhood home, exactly as he remembers it.

      There are lights on in the Oikawa household, pale yellow visibly though the dull afternoon light. The Oikawas always forget to turn off the lights even whent he house stands empty during the day. The afternoon sun teases playful shimmers off the windows on the second floor.

      Kuroo squints up at the house, then down the street. “You know this place?”

      “Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, slowly. He can’t tear his eyes away from one window in particular — the one that used to be Oikawa’s window — where, for a second, Iwaizumi thought he saw movement. Maybe.

      “I think… I think this is from one of my memories,” Iwaizumi admits, “Or something like it. I grew up here.”

      “Well that’s just fucking brilliant. We’re still lost then.” Kuroo runs a frustrated hand through his hair and groans. “What’s the point if the dream has gaps like these? How are we supposed to find the target?”

      Iwaizumi doesn’t answer because he is almost sure there is someone up in that room on the second floor. Someone so familiar it aches.

      “Why don’t you go further down this street and scout out the layout of the town. Maybe we aren’t all that lost,” Iwaizumi suggests, a thick urgency suddenly pumping through his veins, “I’ll take a quick look here, okay? There’s something I need to check.”

      Kuroo visibly hesitates, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “Are you sure that’s a good idea, man? You said you grew up here.”

      “Yeah.” Iwaizumi forces himself to look at Kuroo — to meet his friend’s eye — and he tries his best to not look desperate. “Yeah I’m sure. I just need go to check on something.”

      Kuroo nods, and Iwaizumi leaves him there, standing alone on the sidewalk looking apprehensive.

      The sense memory of walking into Oikawa’s childhood home hits Iwaizumi like a punch to the gut. There is the scent of detergent and sweet bread layered with steamed rice. There is the feeling of worn floorboards beneath his shoes and there is the sound of a washer beeping to signal a load of laundry is clean. It is more than that though, it is the extra pair of slippers by the front door meant for Iwaizumi and it is the knowledge — the haunting certainty — that Oikawa is somewhere in this house. That this is home.

      Iwaizumi moves forward, feeling dazed and disconnected. He does not pause to look into the kitchen or the living room. He doesn’t need to. He just heads on up the stairs like he has thousands of times before; his feet instinctively avoiding the fifth step that has been lose since fourth grade and never been fixed.

      The second door on the right is slightly ajar, and Iwaizumi can hear the soft pulse of a j-pop song being mangled out through a phone-speaker, tinny and up-beat.

      Oikawa lies tousled and boneless on the tatami mat floor, asleep and half-buried in a familiar pile of jerseys, blankets and volleyball magazines. There are two untouched mugs of tea gone cold on a tray in the corner and a pile of DVD’s carefully stacked next to the TV set.

      Oikawa smiles in his sleep as Iwaizumi steps into the room, as if sensing him there. The soft shape of it knocks something vital loose inside of Iwaizumi, and it feels like the floodgates have opened — a surge of emotion too mangled and complex to parse welling up in Iwaizumi’s chest until he feels numb with it. A dull ringing in Iwaizumi’s ears drowns out the tinny sound of music as he stumbles forward, his feet catching on a stray shoe and tripping him up.

      He lands on his hands and knees only a foot from his best friend, and Oikawa stirs, brown eyes fluttering open in sleepy contentment. There is no surprise on Oikawa’s face as he sees Iwaizumi crouched beside him — no hesitation in the way he reaches out a lazy, uncoordinated hand and fists Iwaizumi’s well-worn t-shirt, yanking it downwards and out of shape like he has a million times before just because he knows it pisses Iwaizumi off.

      “Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whines, “You’re late.”

      “I…” Iwaizumi doesn’t have any words.

      The ringing in his ears is getting louder as he stares down at an eighteen-year-old Oikawa Tooru, strong and limber with a knee that has not yet been irreversibly fucked-up and a passion that has not yet been re-directed to the field of science.

      It is nighttime outside; stars twinkling with too-bright certainty through Oikawa’s bedroom window. Iwaizumi feels like his lungs have been stuffed with cotton — like there is a bonfire in his chest incinerating him from the inside out.

      “What are you doing?” Oikawa asks, sitting up and tugging at Iwaizumi with more insistence. Iwaizumi moves on autopilot; watches his own, unscarred hands fit themselves into the creases of Oikawa until his arms are wrapped around his best friend, and Oikawa is smiling at him with a look of such soft fondness the only word Iwaizumi knows for it is love.

      Gods, it hurts.

      Iwaizumi tightens his arms around Oikawa and hides his face in the worn folds of Oikawa’s sweatshirt.

      “I missed you,” Iwaizumi chokes out. It might be the truest thing Iwaizumi has ever said. Because he may not miss the lies or the carless selfishness — not enough, not  _enough —_ but he has missed  _this_ Oikawa, the one with the uncomplicated dreams and passionate heart.

      “Of course you did.” Oikawa chirps, “I’m the light and life of your sad existence. I— Iwa-chan?” The mirth bleeds out of Oikawa’s voice as fast as it came.

      “Hey, Hajime it’s alright.”

      Gentle hands stroke Iwaizumi’s back, run through his hair, and the sensation threatens to undo him completely. It has been so long since Iwaizumi last felt the touch of someone he trusts, and it makes him clutch Oikawa tighter — like he is Iwaizumi’s last lifeline in a storm. Maybe, Iwaizumi thinks, if he holds on tight enough he won’t shatter apart completely.

      “It’s alright, I promise,” Oikawa soothes, “You only missed one movie night, we’ll have another one.”

      “Tooru, I missed you so much.” The words are muffled and lost against the soft fabric of Oikawa’s favourite sweatshirt. Iwaizumi feels so young — so exposed — like he is eighteen and harbouring a soul-destroying crush on his best friend, convinced it will never be requited.

      “So melodramatic,” Oikawa teases, but it is gentle. Soft. “Did your grandma put alcohol in your tea again? I told her it only turns you into a big cry baby.” Oikawa’s clever fingers come to rest over Iwaizumi’s heart, pushing him away just enough to force Iwaizumi to meet his eyes.

      “What’s this?” Oikawa’s fingers have snagged on the pouch strapped tightly to Iwaizumi’s chest beneath his shirt. Then there is the feeling of fingers brushing against skin, and a sound of something crinkling as Oikawa undoes the straps and pulls out a photograph.

      “Oh,” Oikawa says, starting down at the old, yellowing picture. He smiles. “You carry this around with you?”

      “I…” There is something Iwaizumi has forgotten. He thinks for a second he can hear someone yelling his name outside.

      “We were so small when this was taken,” Oikawa murmurs, and leans back into Iwaizumi, holding out the photograph for him to see.

      Two boys perch on the tip of a mountain, the world a jumble of green far below as one boy keeps the other from falling.

      Oh.

_Oh._

      The building groans and shakes as Iwaizumi realizes his mistake. The dream runs thin. Dull, afternoon light streams in through the window. The press of a gun-holster feels too heavy under his military issue jacket. Oikawa doesn’t seem to notice.

      Someone is definitely calling Iwaizumi’s name. There are heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, then a creak of wood in the hallway.

      “No wait!”

      Iwaizumi’s yell comes too late.

      Kuroo fires two shots. Both bullets lodge into Oikawa’s spine — one right between the shoulder blades, the other closer to the hip — and Oikawa spasms violently in Iwaizumi’s arms before going limp, head lolling. Brown eyes blink as if in slow motion. Oikawa’s mouth moves but no words come out. Iwaizumi’s head is full of white noise. He can feel the hot wetness of blood on his hands, already seeping from Oikawa’s wounds.

      “Tooru,”

      “Get yourself together, Iwaizumi!” Kurro barks, lifting his gun again to take aim, “This isn’t real. He’s just a projection!”

      “No,” Iwaizumi whispers, “no no no.”

      “You’re dreaming,” Kuroo promises and there is an unspoken threat in his voice. “He isn’t real.”

      Oikawa feels real, though. Everything feels so real. Oikawa’s eyes go unfocused, slipping off to the side.

      “Please, no.” Iwaizumi feels yet another piece of his heart break loose; wonders if there is even enough left for it to still be a heart. Maybe one day soon even the pieces will be ground down to nothing but dust, blowing its way back to settle at the feet of its former home.

      He hears his own voice crack. Feels a sob build.

      “ _Tooru_.”

      The world trembles as an earthquake hits, knocking familiar books and knickknacks to the floor.

      “Iwaizumi you fucking idiot!” Kuroo snarls. The third bullet hits Iwaizumi right between the eyes.

      The dream collapses. They wake up.

 

* * *

 

**DREAMING**

      Where the city-scape had been chaotic and outwardly friendly, the inside of the office building reveals a stark, unforgiving interior. White marble floors contrast black-tinted windows and glass-panelled walls. The lobby furniture is all tasteful cream leather on steel frames and stretches of dark carpeting. Iwaizumi privately thinks Sawamura’s mind might be one of the more fucked-up ones he has traversed — uncharitable and simplistically categorical.

      The downward twist of Oikawa’s mouth indicates similar thoughts.

      Sawamura himself is waiting for an elevator, briefcase in one hand and phone in the other, scrolling through texts or emails with an uninterested tilt to his head. Projections dressed in stiff-collared suits and polished dress shoes mill casually through the lobby, some of them carrying coffee cups or stacks of paperwork. There is no sense of urgency to the dream, just the slow trudge of an early weekday morning.

      Oikawa grimaces when the elevator pings open before they reach it. They watch Sawamura disappear behind closing metal doors, and the display above the elevator count up the floors until it stalls on the seventh.

      “Do you have any idea where this guy is going?” Iwaizumi asks, feeling a spike of nerves bleed into he beginnings of an adrenaline rush. Anticipating where your target will be in a dream is an art Iwaizumi has never quite mastered — more often than not he ends up wasting too much dreamtime simply searching. They can’t afford wasted time today. They only have this one shot.

      “Seventh floor is the gym,” Oikawa says, glancing at his wristwatch, it reads seven thirty sharp. “Look at him, following his morning routines even in his dreams. What a sucker.”

      Iwaizumi throws a frown in Oikawa’s direction and catches the trail-end of an insolent smile being schooled back into levity. Perhaps Oikawa assumes Iwaizumi won’t appreciate the fooling around.

      Maybe this is a correct reading of Iwaizumi’s mood — most probably is, in fact, spot on — but being tip-toed around only serves to get Iwaizumi’s hackles up. He is aware there has been a certain pendulum quality to his emotions lately — an unreliable back and forth between bitter anger and desperate longing. The question of  _what next_ looms closer on the horizon, demanding answers. The time to decide is mere hours away now.

     Suddenly levity isn’t at all what he needs to get this job done.

      “Look who’s talking,” Iwaizumi mutters, trying for jabbing lightness, “This, from the guy who used to have pregame rituals and wouldn’t eat wheat products on exam days.”

      Oikawa blinks at him. The reflexive smile Iwaizumi receives is genuine and just surprised enough to make Iwaizumi glance away, ashamed.

      “That was different,” Oikawa protests, his voice lifting into the well-practiced lilt of put-on offence. It makes Iwaizumi smile. “My routines served a purpose Iwa-chan. They weren’t  _mindless._ ”

      “They were inconvenient, and unnecessary,” Iwaizumi tells him, and taps his fist against Oikawa’s arm in thanks. “Now come on, you sure you don’t need back up?”

      Oikawa shakes his head and glances at the elevator doors, perhaps to hide the flash of uncertainty Iwaizumi sees playing across his features anyway. “There won’t be time for that. You need to find Sawamura’s office before he gets too suspicious. The projections won’t like you coming near it.”

      “Yeah.” Iwaizumi already knew as much. He stares up at the elevator display as it counts back down to one, “Be careful,” he says, just as they ping open and Oikawa steps in.

      There are words on Oikawa lips — in his eyes — maybe even volumes of them. Maybe there is a fleeting glimmer of gold on his finger.

      Iwaizumi watches Oikawa set his jaw and nod, once. Watches the doors shut. Then he steps back and glances up to see the display count up again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. His chest is a tight bundle of acute worry and simmering resentment, all of which he will just have power through for now.

      He turns around and assesses the uninterested crowd of projections moving through the lobby. A silver-haired projection glances at Iwaizumi briefly, tilting his head in friendly inquiry. Iwaizumi nods back politely, and then makes for the stairs. He leaves the too-polished lobby behind in favour of the cold, solid concrete of the emergency stairwell.

      Iwaizumi climbs two floors up, remembering Oikawa’s careful schemas and blueprints, before stepping out into the first of several intersecting corridors he will need to navigate. Like the lobby, the long stretch of narrow space is a study in monochromes — white floors and dark glass walls interspaced with doors or minimalistic art. There are fewer projections here, just glimpses of people walking from one door to the next and a flash of silver hair disappearing down a corridor further down.

      Iwaizumi presses a hand against his gun — just to feel it there — as he strides forward, keeping an eye out for the guideposts Iwaizumi knows Oikawa has planted for him. An inconspicuous plague on one door reads ‘19-23’ — the score of the last volleyball match they ever played together — and Iwaizumi takes a sharp left down a wider corridor, then follows it up a set of stairs.

      A short, middle-aged woman dressed in a pinstripe suit gives Iwaizumi the stink-eye as he walks past, and he picks up his pace a little. He can feel the dream grow sharper around him. His wristwatch beeps once, signalling the first half-hour gone.

      From there on, his route through the corridors becomes more fraught. One projection shoves at Iwaizumi has he passes, another spits at his feet. When Iwaizumi catches sight of the first black-clad security guard he ducks through the nearest doorway, pressing his back against the wall to keep out if sight, and pulls his gun from his waistband.

      A slight scuffle alerts Iwaizumi to another presence in the room. On pure instinct he spins, aiming the gun at the source of the noise.

      Iwaizumi stares at another version of himself.

      Green eyes and spiky hair, a mouth more suited for frowning than smiling. This version of Iwaizumi is a few years younger, softer in some ways; dressed in worn jeans and a Tokyo University hoodie. His hands and wrists are unscarred, his forehead unlined. The projection sits stiffly on the sleek designer furniture, visibly conscious of how he stands out against the hard edges of it.

      Iwaizumi stands frozen, because short of a schizophrenic episode, there is no way he could have brought a projection of himself into the dream. “What the fuck,” Iwaizumi rasps, and has to concentrate on keeping the gun aimed steadily as his hands threaten to tremble.

      The projection looks up and something grim crosses its face as it notices Iwaizumi standing there, holding it at gunpoint.

      “Here to save the day again, are we?” the projection asks, voice echoing against the polished marble floor and bare walls. “I thought we’d stopped trying.”

      “What the hell are you?” Iwaizumi holds the gun tighter, his finger firm against the trigger. The projection just scoffs and looks away, derision curling the corners of its mouth.

      “Of course we came. We’re better than that.”

      Iwaizumi is a fair shot, he can hit the projection between the eyes and it will be gone. Dead. That is what you are supposed to do with projections you recognize. Engaging your own subconscious in dialogue will only trap you — fool you into perceiving your own mind’s narrative as reality. Iwaizumi should shoot, because he knows better by now, he  _does_. He has learned his lesson. Sill, something isn’t right here, and he needs to know what it is. He needs to understand why he can’t recognize himself in this projection.

      “Better than what?” Iwaizumi asks, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. He doesn’t like the bitter set of the projection’s shoulders, doesn’t like the dismissiveness of it.

      “Better than  _him_ ,” the projection spits. “We would never let him down, would we? Break his heart sure, but not  _first_.” Something gold glitters on the projection’s finger like a silent taunt.

      Iwaizumi stares at the ring, blinking furiously as a terrible suspicion creeps up on him.

      “He knows it too,” the projection continues, eyes growing cold as it turns to look Iwaizumi in the eye, “everyone knows. One word from him and we come racing back like a dog conditioned to heel at the shrill of a whistle. But maybe not next time, right? Not the next time he fucks up. Shouldn’t be much longer now.” The projection fiddles with the ring, slipping it off and on too easily, like it doesn’t quite fit — like taking it off would be a relief.

      Slowly, Iwaizumi lowers his gun. His doppelgänger tracks the movement with an air of unconcerned scorn, like it thinks Iwaizumi doesn’t have it in him to shoot. And it makes sense, Iwaizumi thinks, because very few people know how very practiced he is at shooting himself.

      “You’re not my projection.” Iwaizumi means it as a question, but it comes out as a statement instead. He knows he is right.

      “I might as well be.” The projection gets to its feet, stalking towards Iwaizumi, coming to a halt only a few feet away. “After all, who knows us better than Tooru?” The projection holds Iwaizumi’s gaze, fierce and unapologetic. It brandishes the golden wedding band out into the space between them, holding it oh-so-causally between forefinger and thumb. “He found the rings stuck beneath the television set. The box was cracked, but both the rings were still there.” The projection considers the ring, thoughtful, a bitter curl to its mouth. “It was a good touch leaving them behind for him to find — a well-aimed kick to the gut while he was already down. You know, four years later and he still cries over them sometimes. It’s pathetic.”

      It is a strange thing, to feel such vehement revulsion directed towards something so resembling himself. Iwaizumi is not exactly a stranger to self-disgust — to moments of haunting regret — but he was not built to wallow in it, his mind building walls around it instead, hiding it away almost instantly. Now, the sickening turn of his stomach is undeniable; it builds until it is hard to breathe around, until it sits on his tongue, tasting of rage.

      “So you’re supposed to be what he thinks of me, is that it?” Iwaizumi still has the gun in his hand and the weight of it is feels like a dangerous promise. “Oikawa knows I’m not that petty.”

      The projection shakes its head slowly, mouth curling. “Maybe he does know… sometimes. But it’s easier to be angry, isn’t it? Easier to hate us for leaving than blame himself.”

      “Then he’s a dumbass. That’s nothing new.” Iwaizumi tries to fight off the rush of indignation — tries to clamp down on it — because he knows anger can be a distraction from grief.

      “We shouldn’t have come back,” the projection says, and looks down at the ring lying flat in its palm. It looks dull there, unworn. “There is no saving Tooru from himself and we know it. Even he knows it. It would have been kinder to just hang up on him, report the call, save everyone the heartache of  _maybe_.”

      “That’s bullshit. You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Iwaizumi feels his fingers twitch, his free hand clenching into a fist, muscles tensing. He wants to throttle the projection — wants to beat it bloody with his fists until there is nothing left of it. “That’s not how love works. He  _knows_  that.”

      “We’re just going to leave again,” the projection says, its green eyes turned dark and hard with vitriol. “After what he did. He isn’t worth all this fucking effort. He isn’t worth anything.”

      Something inside Iwaizumi snaps; his vision tunnelling as a final piece falls into place; a crucial bit of understanding.

      The butt of Iwaizumi’s gun hits the projection square in the temple, and the projection drops, boneless, head smacking against the floor with a sickening crunch. The ring clatters against the marble, bouncing once, twice, breaking in half as it hits the floor a third time, shattering as if made of glass and not 14 karat gold.

      “I hate you!“ Iwaizumi snarls, drawing back just enough to aim a kick at the projection’s side. Ribs give way on impact. “I’ve always hated you. You ruin everything!” He kicks again, aiming for the head this time. It leaves a wide, red smear on the white marble. “How fucking dare he let you have my voice. My face.” Iwaizumi lifts the gun, aims, pulls the trigger. Does it again. He is panting when he finally stops; breath rattling, sweat beading on his forehead.

      “Leave Tooru alone, you hear me?” His voice comes out rough and broken. “Leave him the fuck alone.”

      Green eyes stare unseeingly up at Iwaizumi. Black, spikey hair matted and wet with pooling blood.

      His wristwatch beeps again — only one more hour to go.

      Iwaizumi takes a step back. Takes a deep breath. Doesn’t look at the fine spray of red coating his shoes. He straightens his jacket, puts a new clip of bullets in his gun. Then he turns on his heel and ducks back out into the corridor.

      Oikawa should be finishing up with Sawamura by now, and Iwaizumi is behind schedule.

 

* * *

 

**2022 — UKRAINE**

      “I need to get out of here,” Iwaizumi says. He and Kuroo sit on opposite sides of their small, shared room, backs to the wall and a bottle of vodka between them. It is getting dark, but neither man move to turn on the overhead light. It feels right to let the night descend on them naturally, after so much time spent in the artificial fluorescent light of the bunker or in the bright haze of lucid dreams. The thick shadows crawling into their room feels like a relief.

      They aren’t drunk. Not yet.

      Iwaizumi rubs a hand over his eyes and lets it rest there; the need to hide is an animal in his chest, curling in on itself to hide its belly. “I wasn’t made for this.”

      “Nobody was made for this.” Kuroo eyes are too tired and too hard. His hands are empty for once, but not still. Never still.

      “I got a passport made,” Iwaizumi tells him, “It wasn’t easy, but the local mob is affiliated with Japan. They just wanted Intel.”

      “Stupid,” Kuroo tells him, “And risky.”

      “Dreamshare is going to leak eventually.” Iwaizumi looks at the bottle, but doesn’t reach for it. Sometimes it is better to experience guilt sober. Perhaps this way he will learn his lesson. He doubts it though. “I didn’t give them any real information, just bones of it. Just the idea.”

      “Sometimes, the idea is enough.”

      “I know,” Iwaizumi says, and thinks of Oikawa. It always starts with an idea, doesn’t it?

      “Selfish,” Kuroo says.

      “Yes,” Iwaizumi agrees, and closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the cold wall in defeat.

      “And what are you going to do once you’re out of here? You’ll be on every international shit list there is. You can’t go home. You can’t go back to your degree and pick back up with your boyfriend.”

      Kuroo’s words are a knife twisting in an already bleeding wound, the burn white-hot and true. “I wasn’t going to. I can’t.” Iwaizumi says, and at this point he feels too lost to know whether it is the truth or not.

      Kuroo scoffs, his hands dipping into his pockets. “Be smart for once and wait this assignment out. They will discharge us with honours and a check big enough to keep us quiet for the rest of our lives.  _Then_  you can go back.”

      “I just need to know there is an out,” Iwaizumi confesses, “I just need to know I can leave before I break.”

      Kuroo goes quiet, and Iwaizumi opens his eyes to see Kuroo fish out a heavy zippo lighter from a pocket. “I’ll make you a deal,” Kuroo says, flipping open the lighter once, only to close it again. The tarnished metal disappears into the hollow of Kuroo’s palm without yielding any flame. When he speaks again, Kuroo’s voice is rough and intent, “You stay. You wait it out. And once we’re done here, I’ll personally burn this whole fucking place down.”

      Iwaizumi stares at Kuroo — searches for facetiousness. But no, it isn’t a joke.

      “Why?” Iwaizumi asks, at a loss, “Burning this place down won’t erase the data they already have. It won’t  _do_  anything.”

      “It will piss them off.” Kuroo grins, sharp-toothed and manic. “Look at me, what do I have anyway? What do I really have?”

      “You could have things,” Iwaizumi tells him, mouth dry and his chested hollow.

      “But I chose this.” Kuroo’s fingers linger on the mottled blue-and-yellow of his wrists for a second before moving on. “I’m not like you, I don’t have anyone to go back to someday.”

      “And what makes you think I do?” The words should have sounded indignant, but instead they come out low and wrung-out.

      Kuroo scoffs again, and reaches for the bottle.

      “Maybe you don’t,” Kuroo says, leaning forward. His wild hair shadows his face so even his eyes disappear into the darkness of the room. “But I saw you, remember? I saw that projection of yours and I doubt you’d be this fucked up if you knew for certain there was no chance of ever hashing it out with him.”

      Iwaizumi looks down, looks away. “I don’t know what I want,” he admits, and it has been years since he left that apartment — since he left the rubble of a life and a love behind to smoulder and decay. It has been years of choices made that weren’t wholly his own, and choices made that were, and still, even now, he has no clue what he wants.

      “So stay,” Kuroo says, “Wait. Figure it out. Don’t burn bridges you still might want to cross,” he holds out the bottle, “And then I’ll burn the rest.”

      Iwaizumi stares at the proffered bottle, and he thinks Kuroo is wrong. He thinks the situation is much more complicated and the stakes too high for it to be this simple. He doesn’t need more time. Iwaizumi has already  _had_  time and still he has no answers.

      But maybe it  _is_  simple. Maybe Kuroo has a point.

      Iwaizumi takes bottle. He thinks he can wait a while longer. He can wait and see what other horrors Dreamshare holds for him. He can wait because maybe —  _maybe_  — once all of this is over he will be able to face Oikawa again. Maybe they will have that conversation Iwaizumi walked out on. And for now,  _maybe_  just the possibility of that is enough.

      Still, Iwaizumi doesn’t regret getting the fake passport. He needs more than just a single torn photograph to hold on to — to keep him sane — he needs the familiar kanji and the assurance of a fake name and the knowledge that he can leave before this place breaks him irreparably.

 

* * *

 

 

 **DREAMING**  

      Iwaizumi shoots three projections on his way through the final stretch of corridors — one in the leg and two between the eyes — leaving slumped bodies and wet pools of blood on the dark carpets. He is numb to it all and that is probably good, he thinks, because in a dream it is rarely the lack of emotion that will get you.

      It is too late for stealth anyway, better to be quick and brutal. Better to pull the trigger and let the chips fall where they may.

      Sawamura's office is a brightly lit room with white walls and chrome furnishings. A security guard stands outside it, manning the door — a good sign all things considered. It means Sawamua’s subconscious is hiding something worth guarding.

      Iwaizumi shoots the man in the mouth — feels the force of it vibrate up his arms and into his shoulders — and then he slips into the office, wasting no time diving for the bookshelf.

      The safe is fitted snugly into the shelf behind a collection of Shakespeare’s tragedies, right where Oikawa had promised it would be. Iwaizumi reaches for the stun gun he has tucked inside his jacket — ready to short circuit the safe’s electrical unit and backup battery — only to pause.

      “ _Shit_.”

      The safe doesn’t have a keyboard or an LED interface. It doesn’t even have a combination dial. It is an old-school lock with a key — the kind of lock any small-time thief could probably pick with the right set of tools and a bit of practice.

      Iwaizumi feels a bubble of hysteria build in his chest, because he may know guns — he may know all the ins and outs of militarized dreaming and he may know the chemical compositions of several different roofies — but he has never actually had to pick a lock before.

      The distant thud of footsteps echo down the hall heading towards Sawamura’s office, hard-soled loafers slapping against marble floors, approaching with urgency. There is no time.

      Iwaizumi dives for the desk. The dream shudders as his fingers find the wooden haft of a fire-fighter axe secured under the table, the axe placed there by Iwaizumi’s need, not by design. He is breaking the rules doing it like this — breaking the dream’s internal logic — but only a little. Hopefully enough.

      He has maybe 23 minutes left before the somnacin runs out. 23 minutes to figure out how to get into the safe or wake up empty-handed.

      The footsteps have drawn noticeably closer as Iwaizumi hefts the axe. He steps forward and swings. The metal head bites into the heavy wooden shelf just shy of the safe. Iwaizumi swings again, and then again until the small safe crashes to the floor, the shelving around it too hacked up to support the weight of it.

      He barely manages to get his gun out before two black-clad security guards are rounding the corner into the office. Iwaizumi throws the axe, needing both his hands free to aim. The axe grazes the first man’s shoulder, the blade narrowly missing the exposed flesh of the man’s neck. The guard staggers backwards into his friend, delaying them just enough for Iwaizumi take aim.

      The first shot is too hasty and goes wide. The second and third shots hit home, but not before the sound of a forth gunshot echoes through the building. White-hot pain burns through Iwaizumi’s left side, blinding him for a minute and making him stagger. It takes ten long breaths before Iwaizumi can locate the pain as coming from his left shoulder.

      “ _Fuck_ ” Iwaizumi swears, and grits his teeth. The guards are both down for good but there will be more before long and time is already running out too quick. Gingerly, he bends down and hefts the safe up under his good arm. Realistically, it weighs maybe 25 kilos but it might as well have been double that with how the awkward bundle of it strains his shoulder and makes pain lace up his neck and down his spine until he is lightheaded and blinking.

      It is almost impossible to fish the phone out of his pocket but he somehow manages and speed dials Oikawa’s number more on instinct than coherent thought.

      Oikawa picks up on the second ring, his voice curt. “ _Yes_.”

      “We have a problem,” Iwaizumi steps over the guards delicately, edging his way out into the hallway. “The safe, it’s…” He has to lean against the wall for balance after only a few steps, a wave of dizziness hitting him.

 _“Iwa-chan?”_ The pitch of Oikawa’s voice registers in Iwaizumi’s brain as alarm.  _“Are you okay? Where are you?”_

      “Oikawa, the safe isn’t electronic, I can’t open it. Sawamura must have a key on him or something. Are you still with him?”

      Oikawa is silent for one long beat.  _“Yes_ ,” Oikawa finally says _, “I’m keeping close to him. But we don’t have the time for me to lead him to the office. I don’t think—“_

      “I’m coming to you. You need to tell me where the short-cut you built in is.” Iwaizumi starts walking again, keeping close to one side of the hallway. He has no way of protecting himself from hostile projections, not with the safe under his good arm and the phone held gingerly in the other. His best weapon now is speed.

_“You’re coming here with the safe?”_

      “You have any better idea smartass?” Iwaizumi retorts, almost loosing his grip on the unwieldy box and missing a step. He grunts through a flair of pain and then keeps moving. “It’s a small fucking safe anyway. Just get the key.”

_“Right, okay. Good thinking. Are you still in his office?”_

      “Hallway 32, eight doors down,” Iwaizumi tells him.

_“Okay, that’s good. Take the next right, there is a dumbwaiter lift three doors down, it’ll take you to seventh.”_

      “Got it. Just find that key yeah?”

 _“Nineteen minutes.”_  Oikawa reminds him, and then the line cuts out.

 

      The dumbwaiter lift isn’t the tiny, tray-sized affair Iwaizumi was dreading but the kind made for transporting heavy-duty food trollies. He can hear vices echo down the hallway as more projections gather, growing increasingly agitated at the removal of Sawamura’s secrets from their designated place.

      He huddles into the dumbwaiter lift, banging his head against the ceiling once as he reaches for the control panel and jabs the button for the seventh floor. The metal door closes just as first projections round the corner, taking him away from their enraged shouts and weaponized office supplies.

      The elevator takes him up and approximately 20 meters to the right of where Iwaizumi got in. He can’t help but marvel at the audacity of a diagonal elevator built into the most basic fabric of the dream. It is the kind of shameless,  _brilliant_ idea only Oikawa could have conceived and implemented simply as a safety precaution.

      Gingerly, Iwaizumi crawls out of the lift, pushing the safe out ahead of him. Then he turns and slams the butt of his gun into the control panel, cracking it open with the first hit and tearing wires and print board to pieces with the second.

      Standing up again is a challenge. His shirt and jacket feel warm and wet where they press against the meat of his left shoulder. The safe is almost impossible to lift one-handed, but he manages by using the wall for leverage.

      The gym area is just down the hall, but Iwaizumi knows Oikawa will have lead Sawamura away from any heavy, throwable equipment at this point. He heads the opposite direction instead, towards the locker rooms, grateful for Oikawa’s insistence that he memorize all the routes through the building.

      The hallway echo hollowly, marble replaced by lacquered concrete unadorned walls. There are no projections up here, all of them having presumably headed towards Sawamura’s office as soon as Iwaizumi got his hands on the safe. Now, it is only a matter of time before they make their way up.

      He finds Oikawa in the doorway to the lockers, looking tight-lipped and harried. His jacket has been displaced somewhere and his shirt is untucked, the sleeves rolled up.

      “Oh thank fuck,” Oikawa says, and then visibly pales as his eyes settle on Iwaizumi’s shoulder. “ _Iwa-chan you’re—“_

      “Where is Sawamura?” Iwaizumi interrupts.

      Oikawa is already at his side, lifting the safe out of Iwaizumi’s grip. He bites his lips, visibly torn. “You should kick yourself out of the dream Iwa-chan, I can—“

      “We have ten minutes left Oikawa, I’ll live okay? Where is he?”

      “In here,” Oikawa says, ushering him through the door to the locker-room and locking it behind them. Sawamura sits on the tiled floor in one of the toilet cubicles, his hands tied behind his back to a water pipe He has been gagged and blindfolded with what looks suspiciously like Oikawa’s tie.

      “I didn’t have time to search him before you got here,” Oikawa says, his brown eyes still trained on Iwaizumi’s shoulder.

      Sawamura has his head turned towards their voices, his chin tucked and teeth visibly gritted. There is a growing splotch of red on the edge of the blindfold where it presses against a cut in Sawamura’s eyebrow.

      Iwaizumi allows himself a few seconds to just breathe. Then, in one swift move he crouches and gets his right forearm against Sawamura’s sternum, using his weight to force Sawamura fully back against the wall. Pain shocks up Iwaizumi’s spine at the move, making him blink rapidly as his eyes water, but it serves to keep Sawamura stationary and unable to bite anyone who wants to search his pockets.

      “Oi, get over here!” Iwaizumi barks at Oikawa who is frankly taking too long getting with the plot.

      “I could have done that you idiot,” Oikawa snaps, carefully crouching down besides Iwaizumi and slipping his hands into Sawamura’s pockets, patting the man down. “Just looking at you makes me feel dizzy. What did you even do to get shot?”

      “I didn’t  _do_ anything.”

      “You did  _something_ ,” Oikawa insists and then hisses triumphantly as he extracts a bundle of keys from Sawamura’s inner pocket. “That’s what the maze is for, to keep the—“ Oikawa cuts off with a quick glance at Sawamura, “to keep the  _people_  from getting near you.”

      Iwaizumi shoves off Sawamura, staggering backwards, unbalanced until he feels a careful, steadying hand against the small of his back.

      The tight, worried lines around Oikawa’s eyes makes something in Iwaizumi’s stomach feel hot and uncomfortable.

      “The maze is a trick. A gimmick.” Iwaizumi says, stepping away and out of the cubicle. The door between them and Sawamura slams shut, effectively muting the muffled sounds of their hostage’s outrage. “This,” Iwaizumi gestures wildly around them, “This isn’t a fucking playground.”

      “I know that.” Oikawa’s voice is tinted with the trappings of hysteria, his fingers white-knuckled around the metal of the keys. “Why do you think we’re doing this? We’re making sure people can’t use this tech for—”

      “You’re implying there are good uses,” Iwaizumi spits, practically pushing Oikawa towards the bench where they left the safe only minutes before. “There are no good uses for dreams. There is just invaded privacy and stolen secrets and— and fucking getting  _shot!_  Someone always gets  _shot._ ”

      “If that’s what you think,” Oikawa hisses back, “then why would you even agree to help me?” His movements are jerky and too quick as he kneels down in front of the safe and fumbles with the keys. There is a dangerous wobble to the quality of his voice when he speaks. “If it were all so terrible, why would you help me make Dreamshare public? You could have just— just told me to fuck off. You could have just let me deal with it.”

      “You know I couldn’t,” Iwaizumi says, bristling. And that — at least — is the truth and they both know it.

      “That’s right,” Oikawa agrees, fitting a key into the lock and cursing when it only slides halfway in. “You can never tell me no. But you can leave me with no word, no call, no  _nothing_.”

      The second key slides all the way in and Oikawa fumbles with the latch, his fingers graceless in his anger.

      Iwaizumi feels cold and hot and too hurt to know anything but the pulsing heat in left shoulder and how Oikawa’s words make him helplessly indignant

      “You don’t have any right to judge— ”

      “ _Judge?_ You hurt me too, Hajime! You  _left_. I had to hear from your mother you joined the military. I had to hack a military line to get you on the phone!”

      The safe swings open. A single piece of paper lies flat on the bottom of it, a series of numbers scrawled across the paper’s surface in rushed penmanship, the ink slightly smudged.

      The line of Oikawa’s shoulders stretch stiff and wide as beautiful fingers swipe the paper from inside the safe and he stands, finally turning back towards Iwaizumi. Oikawa’s eyes are hard and dry, his mouth firm. Iwaizumi realizes then, that this is the first time since they reunited that Oikawa is  _angry_ and unapologetic about it.

      “I’m not stupid Hajime,” Oikawa says, his voice level but not calm. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I did. I know I fucked up. I know I wasn’t thinking about you, or us or anything but myself when I started all of this. I said sorry, but I know sorry isn’t… I mean maybe I  _hoped,_  but I  _know_ —” Oikawa’s voice breaks and he looks away, his jaw working silently. His voice has turned thick when he speaks again. “I didn’t know what life without you would be like. I didn’t know you  _could_ leave, and I’ve never... Can you at least stop pretending you didn’t break my heart, too?”

      Iwaizumi isn’t okay. His shoulder hurts because he’s been shot and he is slowly bleeding out. He feels hot and woozy and there is a stone in his chest so large he can barely breathe. He looks at Oikawa and he thinks of Kuroo, alone and fidgeting in a bunker in Ukraine. He thinks of promises and of burning and of a fluffy-haired boy with dreams that included Iwaizumi always.

      “You left me first,” Iwaizumi says, staring at the line of Oikawa’s jaw. As the words leave his mouth, he knows them to be true. “You left to come down here. You left me all the time, for years.”

      Oikawa’s face twists, scrunches, and crumbles. He blinks rapidly.

      “Tooru,” Iwaizumi says wretched, but his words are lost to a movement in the periphery of his eyesight and the deafening crack of a gun.

      Oikawa staggers.

      Iwaizumi is already diving to catch Oikawa when the second shot is fired, missing them by a few feet.

      Oikawa is warm and heavy in Iwaizumi’s arms, his hair perfectly soft between Iwaizumi’s fingers where he cradles the back of Oikawa’s head. Oikawa’s eyes are glazed, his mouth open, his chest unmoving.

      “ _Tooru_ ,” Iwaizumi doesn’t know how to do this again.

      Unhurried footsteps take the silver-haired shooter into the locker room, but Iwaizumi doesn’t look up. Oikawa already got what they came for. The dream is almost over, the last minutes ticking down and away.

      It  _feels_  real, though. It always feels real.

      “I’m going to kill you.” Koushi Sugawara promises, and Iwaizumi nods, his eyes locked on Oikawa. A familiar wedding band glints mellowly and well-worn on Oikawa’s left hand.

 

 

      Dying always hurts, or least it always does in dreams.

      The pain centres are in the brain, after all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

      Iwaizumi wakes too slowly. He wakes groggily and with his head pounding as if with a hangover.

      He wakes up in a gaudy, over-decorated hotel room next to a drugged-out man who makes a living rigging stock prices, and who’s significant other lobbies for same-sex marriage in Japan.

      He doesn’t know what Oikawa did to him in those few seconds alone, while Iwaizumi held the corpse of the only boy he has ever loved. While he trembled.

      The PASIV is gone. So are the needles and the tubing and the harnesses.

      Iwaizumi wakes up alone.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. If even one you read this fic back in September, I am sincerely sorry. I really didn't mean for this to take so long. Good news is that this fic is almost done and the third and final chapter will be considerably shorter in length. Bad news is that it is exam season, so who knows when there will be time for writing.  
> Please leave me a comment they make me happy.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Inception breakdown:**  
>  Inception-verse is based on the idea of shared dreaming (Dreamshare) in which people can enter a person's mind and share the dream. The dream is populated by manifestations of the subconsciousness, also called projections, who take the form of people you know but may not recognize. The machine used for Dreamshare is called a PASIV and the drug used to put the dreamers to sleep and maintain the dream is called Somnacin. If you die in a dream, you wake up.  
> There. That's basically it.
> 
>  **Art links:**  
> [ Laifis' tumblr](https://laifis.tumblr.com/)  
> [ART: The Lab Scene](https://laifis.tumblr.com/post/177802205845/the-first-part-of-my-gift-for-owaya1-my-muse-for)  
> [ART: The Opening Art](https://laifis.tumblr.com/post/177912315944/laifis-the-second-part-of-my-gift-for)  
> [ART: The End Scene Art](https://laifis.tumblr.com/post/178123736547/the-third-part-of-my-gift-for-owaya1-art-inspired)  
>   
>  **Final note:** Part Two is half-written and completely plotted out, so fear not. I am however, a slow writer. Please have patience and let me know how you liked my fic so far!


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